Peau de pêche Review: A sweet, dusty silent film that feels real

You should probably put this on if you have a soft spot for those dusty, silent French films that feel like a half-remembered dream. It is definitely for the people who like looking at old buildings and wondering about the ghosts who lived there.

If you need fast cuts or someone talking every five seconds, you will totally hate it. 🙄

The movie starts in Montmartre and it looks properly grimy. Not like a movie set, but like a place where people actually scrub floors and get soot on their faces.

Little Jean-Pierre is this tiny kid running around the streets. He looks like he has never seen a vegetable in his entire life, which makes the next part work so well.

His foster parents ship him off to the countryside. The shift in the way the film looks is huge.

Suddenly there are wide open fields and trees that look so soft you almost want to reach into the screen and touch them. It has a similar vibe to the atmosphere in Broken Homes, though maybe a bit less depressing at first.

There is this one shot of him just standing in the tall grass. He looks so small and out of place, like a city cat dropped in the middle of the woods.

Then the movie skips ahead ten years. He is a grown man now, played by Jimmy Gaillard.

He goes back to the city because he’s haunted by the memory of a girl. It is always a girl, isn't it? 🤷‍♂️

Simone Mareuil plays the girl, and she is great. If you recognize her name, it is probably from that famous surrealist short where the eye gets cut, but here she is much more grounded and sweet.

The lighting on her face in the cafe scenes is actually really beautiful. It makes everything else feel a bit dark and lonely by comparison.

I noticed a weird thing where the extras in the background of the city scenes just stare at the camera. It’s slightly distracting but also makes the whole thing feel like a time capsule.

The middle part of the movie drags a little bit. I found myself looking at the furniture in the background more than the actual plot for a few minutes.

It gets way better once he starts realizing that the city he remembered isn't really there anymore. Everything feels smaller and more crowded to him now.

There is a lot of longing in this movie. It reminds me of the way characters look at each other in The Girl Philippa, where you can tell they are thinking about things they can't say out loud.

The "peach skin" nickname for the girl is a bit much. They mention it enough that you start to get the point pretty early on. 🍑

One scene near the end involves a lot of smoke and it’s shot so well. You can almost smell the cheap cigarettes and the old wood.

It’s not a perfect movie, and some of the acting is a bit much—lots of dramatic hand gestures. But the heart of it is very real.

The ending isn't exactly what I expected. It feels heavy in a way that sticks with you after the screen goes black.

It’s a solid choice for a rainy Sunday afternoon when you want to feel a little bit nostalgic for a time you never actually lived through.