Critics reviews

The pleasures and the comforts of this one woman’s life become the pleasures and comforts of every viewer, a tiny adventure that doesn’t travel very far from this woman’s heart.

Sofia Bohdanowicz described being soothed by the unabashedly personal films of the French New Wave, and setting out to follow their example. I know just what she means. But to say I was soothed by her diaristic profile of a 70-something Parisian astrologer, undertaken on a sort of calculated whim, is to understate the enormous solace and affirmation I took from it.

The result is a direct, yet gentle symbiosis, with a transparency in its form; Bohdanowicz allows herself to be present, often as a disembodied guide . . . and so the illusion of objectivity is discarded immediately. The apparatus of the film laid bare, Maison adapts its form to see its subjects more fully.

The filmmaker sometimes drops in diarylike passages via voice-over, wondering what her footage will yield. Ms. Bohdanowicz’s self-interrogation is clearly important to her art, but I think she worries too much, at least where this subject is concerned. Her hostess, a model of charm, good humor and senior wisdom, is a movie unto herself.

Peering into Juliane's life is a real privilege, one that I would have enjoyed watching for much longer. With the budget constraints that come with shooting on film, Maison du bonheur had a finite space in which to exist. Yet, it makes a big (and lasting) impression, a visit with a magnetic stranger who you may never see again but won't soon forget.