In Dutch filmmaker Peter van Houten's documentary film Miel-Emile we are taken into the world of Emile Raaijmakers, now almost 80 years of age, who lives alone in the mountains of the French Pyrenees, where he is visited occasionally by his adult children. Emile (also known as Miel) was one of 12 children born to Dutch artist Pierre Raaijmakers and his wife, who moved to this isolated and impoverished region of France in the years following World War II, where they lived a hard-scrabble existence, and raised their children. Emile's was a far from idyllic boyhood, and his primary memories are of an authoritarian father whose sole focus was on his art, and who had little time for his family. Emile's mother also suffered during those early years; she considered divorce as she struggled to raise and feed the large family, with little money coming in.

Van Houten patiently allows Emile to tell his story at his own slow pace, and the result is a very languid film, with extended interludes of stillness. We watch as Emile goes through his morning routine, waking to cold mountain air, lighting a fire in his wood-burning stove to bring some warmth into the old, stone house: a match is struck, the match flame held to a dried pine cone until it too is alight, the cone then carefully placed inside the stove, among other tinder. We watch as Emile measures out his asthma medication; we watch as he lights one of an endless sequence of cigarettes; as he wanders though his garden, strewn with bright red poppies; as he gazes out at the Pyrenean mountains, which are wreathed in cloud and dappled by sun.

To balance and corroborate Emile's own account of his early life, we hear passages from letters which were written by Emile's mother, Elise, to her sister living back in Holland. The letters (which are read by one of Emile's own daughters) are filled with Elise's descriptions of their often difficult life, and her own misgivings about her husband, a hard and selfish man not given to (and perhaps incapable of) expressing love.

Despite these early struggles, and a difficult relationship with his father, Emile has managed to finally reach a stage in his life where he feels at peace. In one extended sequence Emile patiently explains his belief that the soul has a different cycle from the body which contains it. "Every human being is a core being or a soul, which survives the body, and that goes to a level of living that is more elevated than here. [...] At that level a new reality exists, that is fitting to that level, a level we can't see or touch, because we are connected to the earth."

There are also moments when Emile has felt a deep and almost spiritual connection to the natural world: "The branches of the trees sway with the wind so wonderfully that I felt it in my heart, as if they grew in my heart. And when I looked at the clouds my heart was this big, as big as the sky. [...] Other times, when I looked at the clouds, I was with them. I floated on these clouds, like this, up and down. And then I could just change my perception, and I was the cloud, or the cloud was in me."

At almost two and a half hours the film is a bit over-long, but there are definite rewards for the patient viewer.

This review is based on an advance screening of Miel-Emile. There are two screenings of Miel-Emile scheduled during VIFF 2019: on Tuesday, October 1 at 8:15 PM, and on Thursday, October 3 at 4:00 PM. You can view a trailer for the film here. Tickets can be purchased here.