A Warmly Heartfelt Season in ‘Will It Snow for Christmas?’

Love and family. Hope, redemption and the resilience of spirit that carries individuals through hard times. All the themes that characterize classic French cinema are given an assured and modern spin in the deeply felt, emotional “Will It Snow for Christmas?” Though it’s slotted for only one week at only one theater (the Nuart in West Los Angeles), don’t be misled. This is one of the most affecting, naturally touching films of the year.

Winner of both the Prix Louis Delluc, the most venerable French film award, and the Cesar for best first film, “Christmas’s” story of several seasons in the life of a farm family introduces Sandrine Veysset as a writer-director who’s a clear descendant of such great humanist directors of the French tradition as Jean Renoir and Marcel Pagnol.

Yet though this story is poignant enough to evoke tears, it would be a mistake to anticipate a sentimental wallow. For Veysset’s accomplishment is a clear-eyed determination to create empathy without getting mushy, to tell a moving story without fogging the lens.

This ability to be even-keeled goes together with a willingness to let the story develop instead of dictating it. Rather than being told what happens or what to think, we’re allowed the welcome luxury of observing and coming to our own conclusions.

What is presented to us are scenes from rural life in southern France, snapshots of a farm so poor there’s no indoor plumbing. Seven children make their home here, playing or working in the fields depending on their age, and all cherished by their protective and loving mother (Dominique Reymond, winner of the best actress prize at the Paris Film Festival).

Their father (Daniel Duval) is not there all the time, but when he is around he’s especially hard on the children, bringing them to tears of frustration and rage. The mother defends them, angrily when need be, and though it’s clear that the parents care for one another, it doesn’t sound implausible when the mother tells him, “One day, I’ll stop loving you.”

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Set over a boiling summer, a cool fall and a frigid winter, “Christmas” allows us what feels like the privilege of living this family’s life along with them and experiencing the power of a mother’s love. Veysset has a gift for making us care what happens, and for getting considerable emotion out of small but potent moments like the mother standing alone in front of a mirror, brushing her hair and dreaming, it seems likely though it’s never stated, of what might have been.

Because we’re not directly informed, it’s not until we’ve connected to this family that we realize where some of the tension has been coming from. The father has another farm nearby, where he lives with his legal wife and their much older offspring. He is not married to the mother we’ve become so attached to, and their children are illegitimate.

Though the emotional connection between father and mother is palpable, that situation makes strains in their relationship inevitable. Because of this, plus the poverty and the hard work, we come to feel that every day is a struggle for these people, every situation brings on the threat of a possible disaster to children and a mother whose earnest decency has won us over.

While “Will It Snow for Christmas?” does contain some plot twists that dance on the edge of melodrama, the effect they have is earned. Always at the center is the mother, refusing to let her children be exploited, determined to do whatever it takes to preserve both their humanity and their dignity. Writer-director Veysset dedicated this film to her own mother, and a more heartfelt piece of work is hard to imagine.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: mature subject matter.

‘Will It Snow for Christmas?’

Dominique Reymond: The Mother

Daniel Duval: The Father

An Ognon Pictures production, released by Zeitgeist Films. Writer-director Sandrine Veysset. Producer Humbert Balsan. Cinematographer Helene Louvart. Editor Nelly Quettier. Costumes Nathalie Raoul. Art director Jack Dubus. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

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* Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.