Sandrine Veysset's austere, touching first feature, Will It Snow For Christmas?, transforms the lush, perpetually romanticized French countryside into something close to a prison camp. Drained of color and melodrama, the film takes on the authenticity of a documentary, distilling rural life to the grinding monotony and physical stress of manual labor. Like last year's equally fine Ulee's Gold, it's about a parent whose responsibilities have wiped out the possibility of a better life. Here, a desperately poor mother (Dominque Reymond) and her seven illegitimate children are essentially slaves to her harsh, womanizing husband (Daniel Duval). What profits are turned by the farm go to his "legal" wife and "real" children, who live comfortably in a nearby estate. It soon becomes exasperatingly clear that this family will never escape, no matter how often they entertain the idea, because it's not worth risking their basic survival. The 30-year-old Veysset has an eye for life's harsh realities, but Will It Snow would be irredeemably bleak were it not for the many bright, tender (albeit fleeting) moments she delivers with just as much conviction and truth. Reymond gives a terrific, nuanced performance as a mother who sees her children as her curse and only blessing, her unwavering devotion to them slightly tainted by resentment.