QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM SAN SEBASTIAN
Thirty-something Sana (in a strong performance by gorgeous Eye Haïdara) takes her twin boys and her beautiful young lover Jules (Jules Waring) to a holiday on the French riviera. Sana is in a position of power, however transitory: she is at the steering wheel, with the three males terribly excited on the passenger and back seats. Rumour has it that Rihanna has a house nearby, and is often to be seen around. Sana is the one aware of the twists and turns of the road, as well as the allure and the danger of this impromptu escapade.
While the topic of race is never acknowledged, the dark colour of Sana’s skin is prevalent. All the neighbours are white (perhaps except for the mythical Rihanna), and presumably so is Sana’s ex-husband Gerard (who is never to be seen). The fact that Sana and the children are black makes them outsiders on multiple levels. Sana’s race, gender and class become prominent, particularly after nosey neighbour Josiane spots her. The children play in the neighbour’s empty pool. only for the infuriated home owner to show up demanding a sizeable compensation in order to make up for the little boys trespassing into his property.
A peculiarly subversive element of Six Days in Spring is the fact that Jules is white. He puts himself in a doubly invasive position.Not only he’s a lover breaking into the space of a family to which he doesn’t belong, but also the children do not understand that their mother is in a relationship with the man (the two boys assume that he’s a family friend instead). It won’t be long before the truth begins to surface. The bottomline is Sana has committed a crime. A small-scale heist. The lingering question is not whether she will be uncovered, but instead when, and what punishment the authorities and her former in-laws will bestow on the loving young woman.
This is a movie about giving up family space in favour of romantic freedom, and then hopelessly attempting to combine the two. Sana does something extremely short-sighted and and short-lived, and she basks in the fleeting moments of joy nevertheless. Her inconsequentiality is universal: we’ve all done something silly and doomed to come to an end at any instant. Sana knows perfectly well that she no longer belongs in that house. She lied to Gerard saying that she’s taking the children to Lyon instead. Yet she refuses to let go of a place with which she developed a certain degree of intimacy. The whole setting is a recipe for disaster. But who hasn’t ever tried a tragically overcooked, unrisen or burn-out dish? The outcome isn’t beautiful, however some of the flavours are still there to be savoured.
This quiet 94-minute drama relies on the simmering tension of being uncovered and abruptly (potentially violently?) evicted from what used to be your own family home. The developments are very subtle, with the 50-year-old Belgian director of slow burn dramas such as The Restless (2021) and A Silence (2023) once again opting for wispy psychological nuances ahead of epic narrative turns. Formally, the movie is simple and austere. The camera is almost entirely static, except for the car scenes. There is little to none artificial lighting. The outcome is gloomy rather than shony. The characters are often dark and hardly discernible. They are just shadows of a not-so-distant past. DoP Jean-François Hensgens does not make a significant effort to brighten up and discern black skin, relegating his protagonists to timid silhouettes. This is neither a gleeful family reunion nor a liberating spring holiday.
Six Days in Spring is in the Official Competition of the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival. A heartfelt and humanistic however unremarkable film.
