With On The Sly, Belgian director Olivier Ringer touches a universal theme
On the sly (A pas de loup), by Olivier Ringer
Cathy, an ordinary little girl who believes that she is invisible to her parents, decides to disappear in order to confirm her theory. In a not so far away forest, the young girl goes off to explore a world that will lead her to discover herself. Along with a friendly fish in a bucket and some magic seeds, Cathy, far away from her parents and society, loses herself, like Robinson Crusoe, in a wild initiation of life between loneliness and survival.
Olivier Ringer, a children's film director, comes back for his second feature with On the Sly (A pas de loup) and films here, with much tenderness, his own daughter: Wynona Ringer. He immerses us in a tender story with a very real message, a complete break with all the children’s tales we are used to nowadays.
Built like an introspective travel tale that leads to the rediscovery of the audience’s childhood, On the Sly concentrates on the parent-child relationship in modern society. Beware, your kids might not look at you the same way they did before! Indeed, taken over by their frenzied rhythm of life, Cathy’s parents don’t seem to give enough time and attention to their child. The film’s theme then becomes universal: the fear of going unnoticed, of becoming transparent. All along the movie, the inner voice of Cathy is the only thing that can be heard, her only travel companion, providing the guidelines of a fairy tale that will lead her to exorcise her scary feelings and fears.
With pure and very natural pictures and aesthetics, this spellbinding movie is a trip just like Alice in Wonderland, except there are no wonders and moreover no special effects. This simplicity gives it a much wilder look on a changing world that the little girl experiences.
Entirely built on the gap between the ordinary world of a family weekend in the country side and how the child experiences it, On the Sly will delight small ones as well as their parents, ideal for a family film show with a difference. On the Sly will be released this Friday, the 1st of June in the UK, it has won the Children's Jury Prize and the Special Jury Prize of the Montreal International Children's Film Festival.
