Love is blind

>> Le Ciel sur la Tête is a romantic tale about heartbreak

by JASON BOGDANERIS

It's become a cinematic cliché to feature a blind character who sees what no one else can. In Le Ciel sur la Tête, Simone, a 10-year-old girl who has lost her sight is precociously sensitive to the power of love. Fortunately the film resists the urge to descend into melodrama, portraying her instead as a mischievous little girl whose blindness is for the most part incidental. Her role as unlikely matchmaker is at the centre of this engaging, if uneven, québécois production.

Living with her lovelorn dad (Marc Messier) after her mother moves out, she does her manipulative best to set him up with Céline, a sensitive woman for whom sadness in men is an aphrodisiac. After successfully getting the couple together, however, their impending marriage faces an unforeseen obstacle.

In a plot twist that literally drops out of the sky, a melancholy stranger crashes his plane into their isolated village. When Simone tells us that his story is "10 times sadder than her dad's," we know it won't be long before Céline falls for him head over heels. Fleeing the tragedy of his own wife's death, the sad-eyed Latin widower becomes a source of growing tension between the couple.

Meanwhile, Simone pals around with the local bad boy with a heart of gold, who takes her for rides on the back of his motorcycle and buys her expensive diamond necklaces she can't see. Despite the fact there's at least a decade's difference in their ages he's the object of her unspoken romantic affections.

The story is narrated by the voice of a grownup Simone, a device which often undermines the onscreen action, reduntantly echoing what we've just seen. There are countless references to characters' inability to see things clearly in contrast to Simone's sightless perception, resulting in some awkward dialogue. Thankfully a strong supporting cast provides some humour, including a priest without a congregation and a Che-Guevara-quoting anarchist bee farmer.

The ultimate message seems to be that in a world of lapsed religious faith and an uncertain political landscape, love is the only ideology worth fighting for. While potentially the stuff of a Harlequin romance, the movie remains watchable thanks to convincing depictions of heartbreak and longing that will strike a chord for anyone who's ever been dumped or tempted to stray.

Le Ciel sur la Tête opens Oct. 19