Made with painstaking care and sensitivity, this debut feature from Belgian film-maker Emmanuelle Nicot is about a child victim of grooming and rape who takes the side of her abuser; this is a 12-year-old girl called Dalva (Zelda Samson), whose father is arrested at the start. It’s an intense film about trauma and its devastating consequences. Nicot ignores the perpetrator to focus on the victim, a decision that makes this film just about bearable; I can’t think of another movie I was so reluctant to watch, but after it started I couldn’t look away.
Love According to Dalva opens with a police raid. “Jacques!” screams Dalva – not “Dad!” – as her father is bundled out of the house. Dalva is driven to a foster home for teenagers where she is furious, insisting that her sexual “relationship” with her father is perfectly natural; they love each other. The other kids laugh at her clothes, which are deeply disturbing: like a middle-aged woman circa 1987, she wears pearl earrings and lace-trimmed dress, her father’s twisted fantasy of a classy lady.
Details of what happened to Dalva come in snatches of conversations between adult professionals assigned to her case; her father kept her locked away, moving frequently. But mostly the film unfolds from Dalva’s perspective as the scales fall from her eyes; by the end she is unrecognisable in a hoodie and jeans. It is all beautifully acted by Samson and the supporting cast, playing characters who feel like real people. Dalva’s roommate in the foster home is tough girl Samia (Fanta Guirassy). Her youth worker (Alexis Manenti) seems rough and uncaring at first, but he’s got the his kids’ backs. Dalva’s hyper-sexualised response to his care is a reminder of how vulnerable she is.
The film feels like it could have been inspired by real-life stories, such as Elisabeth Fritzl’s incarceration by her father. In interviews director Nicot has said she spent a long time researching the care system in France; that attention shows in her truthful-feeling and raw film.
• Love According to Dalva is released on 28 April in UK and Irish cinemas.
