“Declaration of War” (“La guerre est declare”) is the story of a young couple who are suddenly forced to confront a serious illness in their infant son when the child is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The film, directed by Valérie Donzelli, is the personal story of Donzelli, who plays Juliette, and co-writer and co-star Jérémie Elkaïm, who plays Romeo. It is not, however, the film that the filmmakers think they’ve made.
It is very possible that making that film would have required far more courage and personal insight than these people are capable of – a willingness to gut themselves and lay it all out on the table for all to see that simply isn’t here. While it is seems unfair to be critical of people so young who are going through such a trial by fire, Donzelli undermines her own storytelling by showing the eight year old Adam in the very first scene. This makes it difficult for the viewer to be drawn as deeply into the life and death struggle as the filmmakers would like; they are told from the top that the child survives.
From the beginning, we know the child will survive. From the beginning, we know that Romeo and Juliette is a love than can only end badly.
Finally, it seems the only “Declaration of War” is that of the United States on Iraq, no matter how much the filmmakers would like to believe that they’ve declared war on their son’s disease. That’s not what they’ve chosen to show us. There are a couple of tepid confrontations with minor hospital staff members but, outside of that, the troubled parents seem to have instant access to the best doctors and hospitals around. There’s no question that there son will get the best medical care and that medical care comes through friends and family connections--not through fighting to get it.
As a mother who spent time in the hospital with a seriously ill two-year-old myself, there are scenes that I found incomprehensible. At first, I enjoyed the sequence in which Romeo and Juliette left the hospital to romp in the snow. I could completely understand the few minutes of exhilaration, that recharging of mental, emotional and physical batteries that make it possible to go wrong. But, upon their return to the hospital, we learn that the baby’s fever has finally broken and that’s where it all fell apart for me. A baby with a fever is a baby in crisis – whether or not it has cancer. Can it really be true that these parents walked away from that baby to play in the snow? What, exactly, is the viewer supposed to get from that? Or was it simply a filmmaking device – of which there are many – to make the film more viewable by incorporating changes of pace and emotion?
In a scene in which the young couple faces up to their fears, those fears include that their baby will grow up to be a dwarf or black … they never say that they are afraid he will die. How can that not be at the forefront of their minds? Perhaps it was something they couldn’t face. Perhaps even now there’s a taboo which prevents them from considering it. But if you’re going to make this movie, shouldn’t you be, as said above, willing to eviscerate yourself and lay it all out?
None of this is to say that the film is not emotionally engrossing. It is. The infant Adam is compelling and one would have to be completely heartless not to root for him and his own battle for life. Romeo and Juliette are engaging and one would have to be completely heartless not to root for them and their happiness. One has to love the friend who hands over the keys to his scooter to the struggling young couple because they need it more. Or the lesbian grandmother whose wife spends hours redoing the young couple’s apartment as her sacrifice on the altar of their suffering.
And I have to say – yes, I know it’s a French film and I know the French have a tendency to smoke but this young couple chain smokes so consistently that I couldn’t help wondering if Mom smoked while she was pregnant or around her baby and maybe that’s another thing that the director hasn’t yet been able to face. Second-hand smoke.
DIRECTOR: Valérie Donzelli SCREENWRITERS: Jérémie Elkaïm, Valérie Donzelli CAST: Jérémie Elkaïm, Valérie Donzelli RUN TIME: 100 minutes MPAA RATING: Unrated
