French director Sarah Leonor’s gentle triptych drama D’ici là opens with a soft melody, over which rustling leaves and birdsong is heard. Nature is viewed through a three-pane window, one of which is broken, a stone arch, before the view is unimpeded by the human footprint. Leonor is subtly setting up the premise of D’ici là, which explores the interaction between nature and human beings, for whom nature might be compared to a mother’s reassuring bosom.
Set in a valley of the Vosges mountains, France, the story is divided into three chapters: autumn, winter, and spring. Lucien (Frank Beauvais) has sought sanctuary in the forest. His girlfriend Laura (Laetitia Dosch) comes looking for him. He told her and their friends that if he wasn’t back in a month, they should come for him.
It has now been over a month since he left to live off the land. He tells his sympathetic and supportive girlfriend, “Career change, qualifications, options, I can’t stand those words anymore, Laura.” When she asks what they could say instead, he replies: “A good reason to get up in the morning.”
Meanwhile, Aline (Dinara Droukarova) uses wildlife cameras to track a wolf. Her partner, Martin (David Faivre), works away, and she declines to visit him. An appointment with her doctor leaves her future health uncertain. It’s her birthday, which she prefers not to celebrate, and so she and her friends call it an “un-birthday”. Then there’s teenager Jade (Louiza Aura), who will be leaving for university in Paris. Only her boyfriend Théo (Dimitri Doré) dreams of moving to Canada.
D’ici là invites its audience to idle, watch, follow, and sit with its cast of characters, with little emphasis on narrative. In hindsight, there’s a noticeable attention to its triptych of plots about rejection or retreat, obsession, and fleeting time. Leonor might not paint with broad narrative brushstrokes, but why would she?
According to the director’s note, D’ici la conveys how we absorb the essence or spirit of the place we grow up in, and it becomes part of us. This explains the gentleness of D’ici la’s narrative, which focuses the audience on absorbing the essence of the characters’ experiences. D’ici la is spiritual filmmaking, and just as Lucien expresses exhaustion with certain words, so too is the film weary of a conservative filmmaking tradition.
In Lucien’s story, the absence of music and reliance on diegetic sounds emphasises the sensual connection we feel toward nature’s fields, forests, and streams. This is Leonor’s way of respecting nature’s communicative presence, inviting her audience to hear and see it on nature’s own terms. This approach reminds me of Swedish director Mikael Lypinski and Danish director Kasper Bisgaard’s 2025 documentary, The End of Quiet.
Set in the small West Virginian town of Green Bank, home to the largest radio telescope and known as the “Quiet Zone”, there was once a near-total ban on cell phones and other electronic devices. This created a sanctuary for anyone wishing to escape digital noise. It was a place where the natural soundscape could be heard. That was until restrictions on Wi-Fi and other digital usage were deregulated.
Parts of D’ici la are exercises in humility, as Leonor and her team emphasize nature’s sensuality beneath the weight of the human footprint. What is most surprising about D’ici la, however, is how it lures viewers into forming a strong impression of the director’s aesthetic intentions before shifting.
The first two stories, Lucien’s in particular, romanticize the loneliness of being alone with nature. More than that, the way Lucien and Aline interact with nature stirs a longing for an appreciation of nature too easily lost in the everyday hustle and bustle.
Laura’s arrival suggests things to come. Each story becomes more populated with human characters, rising from three in the first, around seven in the second, to ten in the third. From farmland and makeshift abodes to a house in the forest, a doctor’s surgery, and a small town, D’ici la enters the human world, signaled by the expanding use of music.
Nature shifts from a sanctuary in Lucien’s story to a curiosity in Aline’s, though even for Aline, the woods are her own sanctuary. Whether Aline might leave is left ambiguous. In Jade’s story, D’ici la becomes a film about departures. Overall, however, the film and its characters are a metaphor of the scattered seeds that grow, reaching high above the ground level from which they sprang. Lucien choosing this valley and putting down roots is like the seed that was planted. Aline represents its growth and Jade its majesty.
D’ici la is a finely judged collection of short stories, with a discipline in Jade’s story to let passing things go on by. For example, the homeless man who breaks into homes and steals food is harassed by Théo and other locals. Each story is incomplete, plucking a moment from these characters’ lives. Aline’s is the most fully realized of the three, and Lucien’s the more ambiguous. Each passing story carries a sad feeling, as it becomes about leaving nature behind.
American film critic Roger Ebert called cinema an “empathy machine”. This is a fitting way to describe D’ici la, not only for its human characters but also for its portrayal of nature. A story about impermanence, Aline and Jade having to leave what they’ve known behind is effectively juxtaposed with Lucien’s impulse to escape where he’s from. Leonor’s film reminds us that nature is a garden we should cherish.
Cinema can be an exercise of indulgence. We like to believe films are made for an audience, because all artists want and need a response. A film like D’ici la is willing to disregard the audience to a point, because its director asks to be seen and heard, whether what she has to express resonates or not. Understanding is not the point. Rather, the point is lending our eyes and ears to someone’s thoughts and creative expression. D’ici la is a film I appreciated more than I enjoyed, but my appreciation has continued to grow for its genuine warmth, sensitivity, and the courage of its director’s conviction.