The Pelican

Blain’s achingly moving portrait of paternal love focuses on jazz musician and new father Paul (Blain), who, seeking to satisfy his wife’s upwardly mobile desires, takes part in an illegal scheme that promptly lands him in prison. Released many years later, Paul discovers that his wife has remarried to a wealthy man. Tracing them to their luxurious summer house in Switzerland, Paul spies on the new family, hoping to one day reunite with his young son. “Using a minimum of means with a maximum of precision, [Blain’s] portrait of Paul’s obsessive desperation in the face of inevitability emerges with shattering clarity” (Christoph Huber).