人生总会遇到不爽的事，调适心情，亮敞面对，或是唯一所能做的。

朱莉叶与罗密欧的爱情结晶亚当，两岁了，还不能说话，常常呕吐，头好像也是歪的。起初父母都没在意，还总爱随便找个理由糊弄自己。直至送亚当到幼儿园后，罗密欧猛然发现亚当跟其它孩子的迥异之处。他怒斥朱莉叶总是叨叨地找借口而不得要领。于是一起抱着儿子去看医生。医生告诉他们说，这需要全面检查。

朱莉叶老家在马赛，父母还在那生活。联系了最好的医生，朱莉叶抱着孩子就连夜坐快车赶往马赛。罗密欧和亲属们焦急守候着消息。扫描完毕，诊断为脑瘤，需要做手术。难怪孩子一直呕吐，脑瘤一直压迫了脑神经。朱莉叶抱着孩子，决定返回巴黎给亚当做手术。由最好的外科医生圣洛斯做，化了9个小时。

圣洛斯说，手术很成功，现在我告诉你们，那肿瘤是恶性的，但脑神经还有一点残留，那儿没法做，只能靠放射、化疗和骨髓移植慢慢解决，如果顺利的话，孩子可活到5岁。手术很成功，但还有问题。二人商议报喜不报忧。亲人们高兴的乱作一团。但夫妻俩心里在流泪。怎么办？不能放弃，要有信心。

诸多励志的话语响彻云霄。也只能这样了。这是一场漫长的马拉松赛跑。他们每天跑着马拉松。每天观察着自己的宝贝亚当。3岁时，医生发现脑干的那点残留，已演变成横纹肌肿瘤，很罕见的一种病。怎么办？继续怀抱信心。夫妻俩“嗨”了一通宵舞会后，该怎样还怎样。

亚当继续成长。5岁安然地过了。不知不觉，亚当现在8岁了。夫妻俩在无可奈何中，彼此学会了激励，学会了跟亚当一块儿痛苦生长。他们一起玩过山车，体验飞翔的感觉。他们带着亚当来到海边，任海风吹拂，感受大海般的广阔，这是上苍的恩典。好在他们没放弃。人，在困境下，总有克难的奇特因子，这种正能量，终会消解负能量。

医生的正常判断没有错，但罗密欧与朱莉叶始终相信会出现奇迹，因为他们的宝贝叫亚当。片尾写有“献给爱儿—盖布瑞尔！”。

是的，这并非杜撰，这是年轻的女导演瓦莱茜·唐哲丽和爱人杰瑞米·埃尔卡伊姆之间发生的真事故事。他们根据这个故事，用画外音的形式，重新演绎了《命运的挑战》(2011)。激荡的配乐，随着镜头常常快速切换，借以着力表现孩子治疗前后的漫长又肿胀过程，以及夫妻二人在不堪重负后，仍能重拾信心勇敢面对。

想想，这个星球上，有多少家庭面临这样的困境，有的无能为力而放弃，有的心力交瘁后继续坚挺，凡此种种，都显现着生命的无奈与痛苦的成长历程，这没有好坏或对错可言，除非那些少数忍受不了折磨的父母，偷偷地一把掐死正在饱受痛苦的孩子，同样在法国，就有这样的情况。

从这点上看，我并不否定励志的正向作用，只要适度的理性的可行的，心灵的激励，一定是人生在饱受磨难当中必不可少的。当然，诸如传销等组织借心灵鸡汤去洗脑，那又是另外一码事。那些一味地鄙视励志和不屑心灵鸡汤的人，只是因为他们的人生还没有经历过真正的磨难和痛苦，或者说他们的人生还很平顺，但总有一天他们会发现来点可行的心灵鸡汤，足可慰藉不堪的心灵。或者他们会以别的方式堪解。

《佛经》《圣经》《心经》《菜根潭》等经典都能润泽、平衡及激励人生，甚至短章《朱子家训》都能教会我们怎样做一个知足的人。如果我们每一个人都能用“责人之心责己，恕己之心恕人”，我想，我们的世界一定会亮丽好多，也就没有那么多人去冲动又愚蠢地做那些坏事。

“人，总是要有一点精神的。”这一点也不虚。人，在孤独无依时，那种心水般的激荡，是必不可少的，也可以说是原生的。人，本来就蕴藏着固有的力量，但后天的心灵润泽，必会让一个人在寂寞长夜时，心性更加平和更加宁静，这无须置疑。

我以前常跟人说，日本有一个叫原一平的人，举目无亲从乡下来到东京，做了四年寿险营销。他个头矮小，放在人堆里毫不起眼，没人把他放在眼里，拒绝与呵斥，更是家常便饭，26岁前仍一文不名，只能睡在公园，过年也不能回家。那个除夕的月圆之夜，他躺在公园的石椅上，冻得瑟瑟发抖牙齿打战，仍怀抱信念对着群星闪耀的天空祈祷，期盼来年诸事顺利。他笃信“早起的鸟儿有虫吃”，接下来的几年，之前的努力慢慢显现，靠着一股蛮劲，做着陌生拜访，一直坚持到80多岁，终成为有名的“推销之神”。

我所要说的，并不在于他的所谓成功，而是他日复一日、年复一年坚持去做同样一件事，这非一般人所能及，说到底，这就是精神的导向作用，也是一个人应有的独具匠心。

我想，正面的适度的励志，无非就是精神的抚慰作用，让人乐观地面对一切，不至于受到磨难时而信心崩溃。我们常听到这样的话“如果他（她）的身边，有个人好好给开导一下，他就可能那样了”。至少能让对方失控的情绪，好好冷静下来。

是的，所有的困境，一个人不一定都会经历，但或多或少会经历，这才是完整的人生。只是说这种激励要切实可行，太虚假就会令人生厌。唯有真正契合心灵的滋润，才是可贵的，也是有效的。

如同《命运的宣战》中这一对夫妻所做的那样，歇斯底里后，总会找到解决释放压力的方法，他们明知很无奈，却深知仍需坚守。与其说他们不放弃，不如说亚当的痛苦生长，教会了他们怎样去面对，这才是他们人生的最大的获益。

2015、9、17

English Title: Declaration of War

Original Title: La guerre est déclarée

Year: 2011

Country: France

Language: French

Genre: Drama

Director: Valérie Donzelli

Screenwriters: Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaïm

Cinematography: Sébastien Buchmann

Editing: Pauline Gaillard

Cast:

Valérie Donzelli

Jérémie Elkaïm

César Desseix

Brigitte Sy

Elina Löwensohn

Béatrice de Staël

Anne Le Ny

Frédéric Pierrot

Michèle Moretti

Philippe Laudenbach

Bastien Bouillon

Elisabeth Bion

Katia Lewkowicz

Gabriel Elkaïm

Rating: 7.6/10

English Title: Custody

Original Title: Jusqu’à la garde

Year: 2017

Country: France

Language: French

Genre: Drama

Director/Screenwriter: Xavier Legrand

Cinematography: Nathalie Durand

Editing: Yorgos Lamprinos

Cast:

Denis Ménochet

Léa Drucker

Thomas Gioria

Mathilde Auneveux

Florence Janas

Sophie Pincemaille

Saadia Bentaïeb

Emilie Incerti-Formentini

Coralie Russier

Martine Vandeville

Jean-Marie Winling

Mathieu Saikaly

Martine Schambacher

Jean-Claude Leguay

Jérome Care-Aulanier

Jenny Bellay

Julien Lucas

Rating: 8.1/10

Two French films pluckily wrestle with familial tribulations, actress-turned-director Valérie Donzelli’s second feature DECLARATION OF WAR focuses on a pair of parents whose child is diagnosed with brain tumor whereas CUSTODY, Xavier Legrand’s feature debut, covers a custody case and the ugly truth of domesticate violence with spectacular restraint.

Both topics can reverberate universally, but Donzelli and Legrand have very different, even disparate approaches to press home their impact. DOW is inspired by the real story of Gabriel Elkaïm, the son of Donzelli and her ex-partner, actor Jérémie Elkaïm, who suffers a major brain disease as an infant. In the film, Dozelli and Elkaïm play a young couple named Juliette and Romeo (how fateful their destiny is set in store for them!), together they have a baby boy Adam (Desseix), but their domestic bliss is evanescent. When Adam is 18 months old, he is discovered having a brain tumor and after an operation, the cancer proves to be malignant, therefore Romeo and Juliette expend next few years living in the hospital with Adam, who needs to be treated medically on a quotidian basis.

If the premise looks dreary and distressful, that’s the last thing Donzelli tries to evoke in her film, which is why, she over-dramatizes the most heartbreaking moments, viz. when the family members receive the bad tidings, to dull the edge of its pathos (their reactions are explosive rather than implosive), also by introducing Adam at the age of 8 (played by Gabriel himself) right out of the box, audience is reassured that all will be well. DOW plays up to the solidarity between Romeo and Juliette, and among their extended families throughout, meantime, it is also crucial to point up that even in the face of unforgiving adversity, people needs to offload their pressure and kick up their heels once in a while, an “open kiss” party could just do the trick, Donzelli and co. practice what they preach, seeing everything through rose-colored glasses, it is the Gallic spirit billowing out of the most arduous ordeal for a brace of young parents, a sentimental French chanson can just bob up at the drop of a hat, traversing different places to form a duet of the heart.

Holding on to dearly its cinema-vérité fashion, which tallies with its authentic take on the clinical but professional doctors and hospital staff, DOW also flourishes on the organic, mutually counterpoised performances from Donzelli and Elkaïm, who are in perfect sync in their two-shots and their lingering affections fro each other makes a strong case that true love should never be possessive.

Yes “possessiveness” is the bane in CUSTODY, a sequel follows Legrand’s Oscar-nominated short film JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING (2013). But for those who haven’t seen the short, the film astutely opens in a custody court hearing, and allows audience be the judge, without any background info, solely pursuant to the court proceedings (chiefly through the two lawyers’ statements), whom shall we root for? Antoine (Ménochet), a father who seeks shared custody of his 11-year-old son Julien (Gioria), or Miriam (Drucker), Julien’s mother and Antoine’s ex-wife, who, one day, simply whisked away Julien and his elder sister Joséphine (Auneveux) from Antoine (JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING details what happens in that specific day), and accuses him of being violent. Even with Julien’s letter, in which he indubitably states that he doesn’t want to stay with Antoine, can we permit the father a second chance? I think most of us would concur with the judge’s verdict. That is exactly what Legrand lays bare, in the dearth of testimony, the law is more likely to fail to protect the victim of domestic abuse.

If Miriam’s obvious lack of awareness of collecting physically evidence (in the short film, we can see bruises all over her body) is a necessary plot device to veer the narrative into that particular grueling direction, CUSTODY compensates by generating the thrill and tension by contemplating danger in extreme propinquity when Julien is obligated to spend time with Antoine, and it soon dawns on audience that what a monster the seemingly benevolent father is. Although he never lays a finger on Julien, but the sheer emotional abuse he unleashes on his prepubescent son is so staggering and deeply unnerving, praise be Gioria, a wunderkind who could withhold such a fusillade of hectoring, coaxing and threatening, then responses with utterly stunning reaction shots, so much so that viewers might seriously concern about his traumatized mentality.

Ménochet inhabits the revolting character with sonorous precision, and his crocodile tears attest that procuring for sympathy is a possessive abuser’s common shenanigans, a means to continue this vicious circle. Drucker has a more sidelined presence as Miriam in the first half, but takes the central stage when the situation deteriorates, she becomes more and more aware of the forthcoming danger, her steadfast gaze and upright posture eclipse her petite figure, especially in the climax, sheltering a startled child, she trembles, wheezes but also recollects herself in her worst nightmare, like the final girl in a horror movie, only we can vicariously feel her fear, her desperation, along with Gioria’s, they’re visceral to the core, what a searing masterpiece of acting and Legrand’s phlegmatic control of all the actions totally obliterates his greenness.

Both films are big players in the César Awards, DOW reaps 6 nominations and CUSTODY is the top honor recipient, including a triumphant victory for Drucker and Legrand’s script. The former is a box office success while the latter is a critical darling, together they represent the top-tier of filmmaking which discreetly probes into the complicated dynamism among a nuclear family unit, two sides of a coin, one life-affirming, one cautionary, both are the bread of life we cannot get enough of.

referential entries: Joachim Lafosse’s OUR CHILDREN (2012, 6.7/10); Jacques Audiard’s DHEEPAN (2015, 7.1/10); Léonor Serraille’s MONTPARNASSE BIENVENUE (2017, 7.4/10).