Winner of the 2003 Silver Bear at Berlin and with Bruno Todeschini being awarded Best Actor at the recent European Film Awards, Son Frere follows a similar theme to The Barbarian Invasions and Pieces Of April, in that the story surrounds a lead character suffering from a terminal illness.

Thomas (Todeschini) discovers he has a rare blood disease and hasn't long to live. His younger sibling Luc (Eric Caravaca) gives up everything to look after his brother.

Writer/director Patrice Chereau, using a novel by Philippe Besson as his chosen subject, concentrates on telling what is essentially a simple story, without cause for dramatics. It is almost documentary in style, with pale sepia colours. Bodies are supposed to be there to enable us to do everything we want, but here, a body fails and medics try to find solutions, but sometimes compassion and acceptance are the only avenues that really matter and brother love is something to latch onto.

Son Frere is a well told story. You end up thinking, "There but for the grace of God." It could happen to anyone, so ultimately it leaves you appreciating what you have, the nice cards that life deal you, knowing that you can always be worse off.

Todeschini gives a great performance. There are no histronics, although an appreciable anger and obvious frustration and, in the end, an acceptance that his brother has given enough, too. At times, you wish there was more emotion.

Chereau's film has a purity that remains unsullied.