THE STORY – Over the last 4 years, Lilou left her secret life behind, becoming a 64-year-old woman who enjoys DIY, gardening, cycling and looking after her grandchildren. Tom Fontenille films a family healing its wounds and reinventing a place for everyone.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Tom Fontenille (Director/Writer) & Valentine Bonnaz (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 88 Minutes
The opening shot of Tom Fontenille’s deeply moving film “A Secret Heart “shows a photo of a figure placed atop a piano, their grey hair blowing in the wind with a bright smile on their face. The film then cuts to a few years earlier, where we meet the father of the filmmaker, dealing with his struggles in expressing his emotions, and grieving along with his son and daughter the recent loss of his wife of many years. Thus begins one of the more affecting films about transitions late in life, transformations that take many forms in this compact yet revelatory film. On the one hand, there’s the transition into middle age, where the relationship with one’s adult children shifts dramatically. On the other hand, this is a film about loss, where the grieving for a loved one brings forth questions of mortality, a sense of “if not now, then when” as one recognizes there are more years behind than in front. And then there’s the aspect of the film portrayed most deftly: the father’s gender transition into Lilou, finally initiated and documented over a period of many years.
So often with deeply personal documentaries like this, the filmmaker loses their sense of perspective, and things become too insular to engage with outside audiences truly. Fontenille’s gift is providing incredible access to these highly personal moments, but doing so in a way that’s inviting to the audience, never forgetting the tools of filmmaking to consistently orient the viewer and refuse the tendency to simply use the film as an excuse for private, therapeutic, or cathartic reasons.
The family dynamic is richly portrayed, with real questions between the children and their parents about the reticence to express emotion, and the outward manifestation of change that, in some clear ways, masks other emotional secrets that continue to be withheld. These various elements cause disruption as much as the courage to transition is to be lauded, and it’s the gentle yet wide-eyed way that these contradictory elements are interwoven that gives the film much of its power.
Lilou’s story of unmasking is powerful, but as the film’s title illustrates, there are still some secrets held close. The film’s bucolic setting, full of shots of sunlit bike rides and gardening exploits, makes the French-set film feel almost dreamlike, yet its emotional swings are powerfully real. As an unvarnished testimony to these years of change and transformation, the film unfolds in a gentle but deliberate way, bringing us along on the same kinds of leisurely bike rides we see the central character take, weaving around pitfalls while managing to move forward with grace.
There are more than a few narrative twists along the way, including many unvarnished conversations that speak to the truth of the situation, avoiding the sense that any of the dynamics is staged or over-rehearsed. Fontenille’s camera is insistent without being intrusive, save for those times when his parent chides their child for probing too deeply at questions that, out of a mix of stubbornness and emotional reticence, they wish to remain unexplored.
With a unique precision and delicate style, “A Secret Heart” is a film of small scope with large impact; a narrative that is highly personal yet, somewhat implausibly, speaks to larger questions found in almost every family. Despite the seemingly unique circumstances captured, it’s this common humanity, this common heart beating at the core of the story, that makes this film truly memorable.
