INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

In The Thorn in the Heart, director Michel Gondry takes us into the home of his Aunt Suzette to listen to some of the yarns she weaves. A remarkable woman, Suzette was a schoolteacher for fifty years, educating children in tiny rural schools for her entire life. Her experiences are a history of the second half of the twentieth century; she saw first hand the effects of French imperialism and post-war industrialization while teaching some of the poorest farm children and refugees in the country. Gondry follows his aunt back to some of the places where she worked-mostly decrepit ruins today-while discussing what she remembers from her time there and reuniting with old coworkers and students, who simply glow when they see the woman. In those days, she could never stay in one place too long. As the French economy turned away from agriculture and toward manufacturing, people left the farm for the city. Schoolhouse after schoolhouse closed, which constantly forced Suzette to look for work elsewhere. By their own description, though, no matter how long she was around, Suzette touched people's lives very deeply. She's a remarkable woman and a loving, caring teacher, but like many people, Suzette often treated others better than she treated her family. Gondry paints a slightly different picture of his aunt when dealing with her family life. Gondry loves her dearly, the entire family does, but they also see her as a stern and often cold matriarch who can be very careless of other's feelings, especially those of her son, Jean-Yves. Gondry's cousin is a troubled man who struggled much of his life with his sexuality and has never gotten over his father's death. This manifests in Jean-Yves as a deep resentment of his mother and, though they do love each other, the feeling is certainly mutual. The title of the film is a quote from Suzette about her son, which says all you need to know about where she places the blame for her own troubles.