... but it'll still be snowing in July, metaphorically at least, for this mother and her seven children. By pure coincidence I saw this film within days of Au Hasard Balthazar so that I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities, both feature, for example, the abuse of dumb animals but in the former Balthazar really IS an animal whilst in the latter it is Dominique Reymond who is both dumb first for ever getting involved with Daniel Duval and second for staying with him to BE abused by him and there is, of course, an extra twist in that Duval is himself an animal so that the end product is one animal abusing not only a dumb woman but also their own children. In its cyclical nature the film also resembles Etre et Avoir without the joy. There is no doubt that Sandrine Veysset has written and directed a fine film which treads a fine line between documentary and fiction. We are plunged into the action with no preparing the ground - ironic in a film in which farming plays such a large part - and left to work out that Reymonde has, for reasons not explained and thus open to such interpretations as that old catch-all low self esteem, at some time in the past become the mistress cum slave of Duval who in turn has a legal wife and another family in a neighbouring village. He seems to be totally without finer feelings and views his mistress and their seven children as cheap labour first, second and last and at one point he even accuses Reymonde of refusing to 'service' him which speaks volumes of how he sees her although he has already provided an insight into his sensitivity when he makes sexual overtures to his own daughter, which is why Reymonde is reluctant to continue sexual relations with him. The thing that Reymonde has in spades is both a highly developed maternal instinct and an incredible amount of love for her children which is evident in everything she does. If ever a film illustrated Oscar Wilde's oft-quoted 'we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars' it is surely this wonderful movie. Overwhelming.

On the face of it, the life of The Mother and her children might seem tough but idyllic, working hard on a provincial farm, part of a loving family, happy in their own solidarity and inventiveness. Even at the family's lowest ebb, when the alternative of living in a cramped council flat is seriously mooted, The Mother can say, at least you live in the country.

But WILL IT SNOW FOR CHRISTMAS is no unthinking pastoral of blazing sun, beautiful countryside, and hearty rustics. In a world where the neverending sun is a dangerous, oppressive glare, where the land is a bleak, uniform, thoroughly mastered mistress demanding constant attention, where the locals are mean-minded, avaricious bigots, this is pastoral as Bresson might have made it, beating down on its characters, loveless, thankless, relentless.

The image of wholeness and harmony that opens the film, though hard, is deeply schismatic. As they are constantly reminded, the children are the illegitimate offspring of The Father who houses them in a seemingly pleasant farmhouse, with no sanitary or heating amenities, while he exploits them as cheap labour with his two older, 'legitimate' sons, living with his own family who are ashamed of the 'b-----ds'. Initially, he seems tough but fair, a loving father, but as the film wears on, the extent of his cruelty becomes apparent, never melodramatised, rooted in the rural French values of land, greed, sexual desperation and exploitation.

CHRISTMAS is rare in showing a world of work. When you think about it, it's strange how something so completely fundamental to our lives, our identities, our social, economic and political relations is so absent from our films. With the hardly typical exception of policemen, the world of work only acts as a handy character signifier, or, at most, a setting for plot. But it's never simply represented as itself.

Here we get lingering sequences of pure work, and we see its truth, how, for most of us, its thoughtless repetition deadens us, mechanises us, makes us mere animals, brooding and resentful, ready to lash out at whoever we feel is to blame for it, leaving you so tired you can't even read at night. The film is not entirely successful here - my dad came from blighted farming background, and his grim experiences don't really find any correspondances here. But work is an extraordinary revealer of character, and in a film full of quiet, insightful observations of The Mother, a woman of so much love she is in danger of losing it, the most powerful is related to work, after she's discovered The Father has made a pass at her daughter - she sits alone, bowed, under a purple twilight, beside a truck of randomly strewn fruit crates.

So the images of wholeness and authenticity we idealistically associate with the countryside are actually riven with schism. The film describes two worlds - that dominated by The Father, one of virtual slavery (the casting of Daniel Duval, director of LA DEROBADE, an exploitative study of female degradation, is surely no accident),grind, abuse, as inexorable as the seasons; and the indoor world of the family, privileged, remarkably, considering things, still full of love and optimism.

There are brief moments of epiphany throughout, when the relentless 'realistic' visual register is suspended by something more subjective, a space untouched by Father and work. This culminates in the magical Christmas climax, as we see, framed in the darkness, behind a small barred window, an ambiguous image of family: on the one level cramped, imprisoned, shrouded, isolated; on the other harmonious, loving, a source of light and communication, a world of dream and stories that contrasts with Father's exploitative world of mechanical human relations.

The exquisite Joycean epiphany of snow is similarly double-edged - is it dreamt or real?; either way, the problems aren't resolved - the children might be saved, but she is trapped behind the window, alone but secure. This lovely film, never as depressing as an outline of its story might suggest, full of an animating camerawork that belies its characters inability to move, is very similar to Lynne Ramsey's later RATCATCHER, but, while its stylistic tastefulness means it never risks Ramsey's glaring lapses, its reserve means it doesn't quite capture her haunting poetry either.

Thank you to viewers who stayed to the end, that's what the credits say!

It is true that some people left the house after twenty minutes. I have felt amazed, puzzled, wondered, what a beautiful movie! What a strange movie to!

Usually the screenplay, or the director, takes the spectator in consideration and explains to the viewers what it is all about. Not here: suddenly, you are in this farm, people live their lives, don't seem to realize you are there, they work and play and toil, and laugh and cry, and you are still there and you have to make it up for yourself. And you would like so much to be in the screen with them, and talk to them and try to help, and love them, and... and.. and.. And you are hot in the summer and you are so cold in the winter when she picks cabbages (or is it celeriac?) If I refer to Pierrot le Fou, it is because I have not seen anything so different and so catching since.

Thank you, thank you for such a beautiful movie. I'm so glad you ran out of gas!