Le Chiavi Di Casa (The Keys to the House - 2004 Italy)

I think most of us find it hard to watch a film where one of the central characters is severely disabled, just as in real life were unsure how to deal with it. Strange considering how many of us are more than happy to sit through a film concerning somebody dying of a disease like cancer, personally I find that even more difficult to deal with in reality.

I avoided this film in the cinema because I was concerned that it would be overloaded with sentimental melodramatics, playing the sympathy card, but Im glad to say that isnt the case. A simple tale of a father and his 15 year old son meeting and trying to connect for the first time since his birth, why the separation? Because the child is disabled? No, the truth comes out as the father opens up to the mother of a disabled girl receiving treatment in the same hospital, its because he associates his son with the loss of his partner who died during childbirth. 

Guilt is just one of the stumbling blocks between father and son, 15 years is a hell of a long time to make up for, the anxiety of trying to make a relationship, find some sort of connection and learn to deal with the disability is at times overwhelming. As for the son, hes not out to punish his father or even to accept him as his father. To the son hospital and his disability is a way of life, a normality and one thing he tries to emphasise to his father is that he doesnt need or want sympathy, he needs his independence and goes out of his way to show it.

The mother of the disabled girl is played brilliantly by Charlotte Rampling, uncompromisingly honest in a way Im sure many parents of disabled children feel but can never bring themselves to actually say, there is a section where the camera stays unflinchingly on her face, nothing is said, no gestures are made but you can feel the pain and burden that she has ceaselessly carried for so many years.

The end worried me, was this going to be a film of the fathers redemption, would there be this exaggerated heart warming/churning display of familial forgiveness? Thankfully no, it stayed as honest as the rest of the film.

Recommended viewing, if you give it a miss, itll be your loss.

Cheers Trev.

BBFC rated PG

R2 Pal dvd released by Artificial Eye in the UK.