I love this movie so much

Admirable film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Although I found this to be one of the most affecting films that I have seen, I was, nevertheless, astounded at the real depth of feeling shown by the young children in this film.Victoire Thivisol carries absolute sincerity in her portrayal of the recently bereaved young girl, with a realism beyond belief when one considers her tender age. The other children also played their parts with a conviction that would be considered commendable in mature actors with many more years of experience to draw on.As has been noted elsewhere, the graveside apparition of Marie Trintignant as Ponette's mother does seem a fanciful afterthought to give the story a kind of closure, but it is hard to see how the film could have been brought to a conclusion without a similar contrivance.Not a film for the overly sentimental, and I include myself. After watching the film, I bought the DVD, but I,m still waiting the right time to rewatch it.

This film recounts the grieving process of a four-year-old child who has lost her mother, the pain of the loss, of not finding answers, of not finding explanations of the unimaginable. It also shows how the people around the child experience are void. The children as well as the adults all try to offer an explanation. Seen like that, the film could seem awfully sad. But Ponette is also and especially a magnificent reflection on facing death in childhood, on the stages of grief, on all that is unexplainable. On this point, and rightly so, the end of the film should fuel a debate: did this really happen, or was this the product of Ponette's wild imagination? I think that, if we don't ponder this, we pass over one of the major elements of the work.

A really heart-breaking, beautiful movie, made all the more stunning by the fact that much of the acting is done by small children. On one level it is about a 4 year old losing her mother, but on a deeper level it is about man's search for God, and the mysteries of faith (why does God allow bad things to happen to good people, what happens when you die, etc.). Much of the film is really an exploration of the transcendent aspects of God's nature (i.e. - the parts that are beyond human understanding), disguised as childish speculation. This film is also about childhood, the way it should be - filled with loving, caring, wise adults that always have time for children. Ponette's aunt is the mother you wish you had had, and the housekeeper at her school a close second. The only jarring note is Ponette's father - perhaps he is just overcome with grief, but you get the feeling that he is just a little too wrapped up in himself, and never really wanted to be a father.There have been many complaints on this site about the movie's ending, but anyone who thinks that it is unrealistic has probably never lost a loved one. When Ponette in her agony of grief tries to dig her mother out of the grave with her bare hands I thought "I know that feeling." Her mother appearing to her and telling her to be happy is a child's-eye version of the stage in the adult grieving process when you realize that it's OK to let go; that getting on with life does not mean forgetting.

Nobody watching this film can failed to be touched, moved, transported and transformed by it. Others here have already expressed the enormous power of the movie, and particularly of its star, Victoire Thivisol. If you're reading this to see if you should watch it, I'd say, drop everything and go buy it so you can watch it over and over. But buy a case of Kleenex (TM) too, you're going to need them!As I watched the movie, I had the impression that director Jacques Doillon had simply found a real-life tragedy and somehow followed the participants through it with his camera. Nothing in this film gives you the impression of having been written, scripted, staged, produced. It is all so completely natural that you experience first hand the pain, the emotional agony of Ponette, as if she were your own daughter, your own sister, even your own self.