--- title: "Ponette" year: 1996 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/ponette" fi1m_id: "ponette" imdb_id: "tt0117359" tmdb_id: 38523 wikidata_id: "Q1571941" fi1m_score: 84 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-06T04:21:03.841964+00:00" updated: "2026-10-06T04:21:04.434115+00:00" region: "BG" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Ponette (1996) Directed by Jacques Doillon · 1h 37m · Drama ## Identity Ponette - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/ponette - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** ponette - **IMDb ID:** tt0117359 - **TMDB ID:** 38523 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1571941 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117359/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/38523, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1571941 **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A four-year-old works out the theology of resurrection from scratch, and the adults are no help at all > Jacques Doillon’s film about a small girl waiting for her dead mother is the most truthful account of a child’s grief we know, carried by a lead who is not acting so much as living in front of the camera. ## Synopsis Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is four. Her mother (Marie Trintignant) has been killed in a car crash, and Ponette, who was in the car, comes out of hospital with her arm in a cast and no clear idea of what dead means. Her father (Xavier Beauvois) tells her, loses his temper about her mother’s driving, and then, unable to look after her, leaves her in the country with her aunt (Claire Nebout) and her cousins Matiaz (Matiaz Bureau Caton) and Delphine (Delphine Schiltz). The aunt tells her about Jesus rising from the tomb. Ponette takes this as instructions. She waits by windows, talks to her mother under the bedclothes, and argues with the other children about where exactly a dead person goes and what you have to do to get her back. ## Review Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is four years old and her mother (Marie Trintignant) is dead. There was a car crash; Ponette was in the back and has come out with her arm in a cast. Her father (Xavier Beauvois) explains it to her as well as a grieving man can, which is badly, and then leaves her with her aunt (Claire Nebout) and her cousins Matiaz (Matiaz Bureau Caton) and Delphine (Delphine Schiltz) while he goes back to work. Jacques Doillon, who wrote and directed, has made a film about what happens next inside the head of a child who has been told something she has no way to hold. We think it is the best film on the subject we have seen, and we recommend it with one caveat about its shape. The film is Thivisol, and she is unlike any child performer we can think of. She does not do sadness for the camera. She stands in doorways with her cast held slightly away from her body and says, flatly, that her mother is coming back, and when Delphine tells her she is not, she hits her. She talks to her mother under the duvet in a whisper, half instruction and half complaint. The scene that undid us is a small one: Ponette asks her father whether her mother can get out of the box they put her in, and he has no answer, and Thivisol’s face does not crumple but goes very still, as if she has just filed the information. We cried, which we do not say often, and it was the stillness that did it rather than any tears. Around her, Doillon has built a world of children trying to make sense of adult explanations. The aunt tells Ponette that Jesus died and rose again, meaning to comfort her, and Ponette takes it as a procedure. Matiaz and Delphine argue with her about heaven with the seriousness of lawyers. Later, at school, a girl called Ada (Léopoldine Serre) explains that you can become a child of God if you pass certain tests, and Ponette submits to them. It is funny, in the way that listening to children at the next table is funny, and then you remember what she is trying to buy with all this, and it is not funny at all. Caroline Champetier shoots nearly everything at the children’s height, handheld and close, so the adults are mostly legs and voices from above. The light is whatever came through the window. Jacqueline Lecompte cuts very little within a scene; conversations between the children are allowed to run, repeat themselves, drift off the point and come back, which is how children talk. Philippe Sarde’s music is used so sparingly that we noticed its absence more than its presence. Henri Berthon is credited with the production design and also plays the schoolteacher, and the rooms he has given the film are plain, slightly cluttered and lived in, with nothing arranged to be looked at. The looseness has a cost. The middle stretch, Ponette at the aunt’s and then at school, goes round the same loop several times: she insists, the others correct her, she tries a new ritual. The repetition is true to grief but not always to drama, and we felt the film idle for perhaps fifteen minutes. The adults are thin by design, Beauvois in particular given little to do except arrive, shout and leave, and we sometimes wanted a grown-up on screen who was not merely a wall for the children to bounce off. We also found ourselves, more than once, wondering how Doillon got these scenes out of a child this young, and whether we should be comfortable with it. The film does not answer that and we are not sure we can either. Then the last ten minutes take a turn we will not describe. Some viewers will think it a cheat. We did not, because the film has spent ninety minutes earning the right to it, and because what it shows is, in the end, exactly what a four-year-old would need to see. It runs 97 minutes and it is in French. Watch it alone, or with someone who will not talk over it, and do not watch it the week after a funeral. *Fi1m score 84, published 6 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Ponette worth watching?** *Ponette* is worth watching for anyone who can bear a film about a four-year-old's grief, and we scored it 84. Victoire Thivisol's performance is the reason: she does not act sadness, she lives it, and the scene where she asks whether her mother can get out of the box undid us. The middle stretch idles for a quarter of an hour, and it is not one to watch the week after a funeral. **How long is Ponette, and what is it rated?** *Ponette* runs 1h 37m. It is a drama film. **Where can I watch Ponette in Bulgaria?** *Ponette* is not on any streaming or rental service in Bulgaria at the moment. It is available in 3 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does Ponette compare to Forbidden Games?** *Ponette* and [*Forbidden Games*](https://film.one/film/forbidden-games) both watch French children make their own sense of death, and the earlier film is the obvious ancestor. Clément's is the more rounded drama, though its adult feuding is crudely drawn; Doillon's stays almost entirely inside one child's head and is the more truthful for it. If you want story, start with *Forbidden Games*; if you want to be got at, *Ponette*. **What should I watch after Ponette?** After *Ponette*, try [*Forbidden Games*](https://film.one/film/forbidden-games) (1952, Fi1m 86): Two children in wartime France build a cemetery of their own; the obvious ancestor and still shattering. Then [*The Spirit of the Beehive*](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive) (1973, Fi1m 87): A small Spanish girl takes a film monster literally; silence, light and a child’s logic; and [*Ratcatcher*](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher) (1999, Fi1m 88): Glasgow, a canal, a dead boy and the one who saw it; Ramsay’s first and best. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Variety**, David Stratton (75/100, inferred): Stratton finds the film harrowing and touching, despite repetitiveness and looseness that may test some viewers. He particularly praises Victoire Thivisol’s astonishing performance and Doillon’s sensitive direction of the child actors. [Read](https://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/ponette-1200446924/) ## Details - **Director:** Jacques Doillon - **Director:** Jacques Doillon - **Writer:** Jacques Doillon - **Cinematography:** Caroline Champetier - **Editor:** Jacqueline Lecompte - **Music:** Philippe Sarde - **Production design:** Henri Berthon - **Costume design:** Astrid Traissac - **Producer:** Alain Sarde - **Cast:** Victoire Thivisol as Ponette; Matiaz Bureau Caton as Matiaz; Delphine Schiltz as Delphine; Léopoldine Serre as Ada; Luckie Royer as Luce; Carla Ibled as Carla; Antoine du Merle as Antoine; Marie Trintignant as La Mère - **Runtime:** 1h 37m - **First release (Canada):** 10 September 1996 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in Bulgaria Not streaming, renting or buying in Bulgaria at the last check. Also available in: BE, CH, FR. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Forbidden Games* (1952), Fi1m 86: Two children in wartime France build a cemetery of their own; the obvious ancestor and still shattering. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/forbidden-games.md) - *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A small Spanish girl takes a film monster literally; silence, light and a child’s logic. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md) - *Where Is the Friend's House?* (1987): Kiarostami follows a boy on a simple errand that adults keep making impossible. - *Ratcatcher* (1999), Fi1m 88: Glasgow, a canal, a dead boy and the one who saw it; Ramsay’s first and best. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher.md) - *Petite Maman* (2021), Fi1m 88: A girl meets her mother as a child; Sciamma’s gentle, seventy-minute answer to Doillon. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/petite-maman.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/ponette