family

L’heure d’été (Summer Hours)

by James McNally on December 29, 2009 · 1 comment

L’heure d’été (Summer Hours) (Director: Olivier Assayas): On the one hand, Summer Hours has been getting some of the strongest reviews of the year, and yet in some quarters it is being derided as “the furniture movie.” Let me explain.

Hélène (Edith Scob) is the matriarch of a large extended family. Her daughter Adrienne and sons Frédéric and Jérémie visit her in her country home perhaps twice a year. Her uncle was a famous painter and so the house is filled with valuable objets d’art; paintings and furniture are both everyday objects and valuable art pieces. She pulls aside eldest son Frédéric (Charles Berling) during a family visit to speak to him about what should be done with all these things after her death. He doesn’t want to listen. Of course we’ll keep the house as it is, he tells her, for them and their children. But when she dies unexpectedly, it turns out that his siblings have different feelings.

Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) works as a designer in New York City and is constantly in motion. She treasures her memories but has no attachment to the things now that her mother has gone. Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) works as a plant manager in China and has settled there with his wife and children. He needs money to buy a bigger house. So the push and pull begins over what to do with everything. Considering some of the criticism I’d heard, I expected this to be petty, but it definitely is not. This family loves each other deeply, but their lives have taken them to different places.

Assayas’ film pointedly asks us what our “stuff” actually means to us. Hélène laments that when she goes, so much goes with her. Each object in her house has a history that only she can tell. The children’s memories are different, less attached, and the grandchildren hardly know the place at all. The film is a moving meditation on growing old and leaving the world. When each person dies, she takes many things out of the world forever. Though the objects are left behind, their life has gone with the person who held their story. In the end, objects, even beautiful ones, are only objects when their stories have been forgotten.

Far from being a movie about furniture, Summer Hours is about human beings and their absolutely unique contributions to the world. I could not watch this film without thinking every second of another film. Mia Hansen-Løve, Assayas’ wife, directed the similarly powerful Le père de mes enfants (The Father of My Children) (review). Not only do they share a similar theme, but both feature the lovely and magnetic Alice de Lencquesaing, who has a very bright future ahead of her. As well, both directors have an incredible way of working with their actors, coaxing performances of real depth. Though I don’t think Hansen-Løve’s film has yet received the acclaim it deserves, the two films would make a wonderful double-bill.

Official site of the film

8/10 (8/10)

Tagged as: aging, death, family, france

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October Country

by James McNally on November 19, 2009 · 1 comment

in Doc Soup,Documentaries,Film Festivals

Editor’s Note: Doc Soup is a monthly documentary screening programme run by the good folks at Hot Docs. It gives audiences in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver their regular doc fix each year from the fall through to the spring, leading up to the Hot Docs festival itself.

October Country (Directors: Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri): Photographer Donal Mosher has been creating photo-essays of his family for many years. When cinematographer Palmieri saw them, he suggested they make a film. From that simple idea came this lovely, haunting portrait of a troubled American family. Mosher’s family live in Ilion, a small town in upstate New York, and the film covers a period of one year, beginning and ending with Hallowe’en. The title and Hallowe’en theme fit perfectly, since this is a family that seems haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Patriarch Don is an emotionally remote Vietnam vet, struggling with what he witnessed (and perhaps participated in). He’s completely estranged from his sister Denise, a lonely Wiccan who has always found solace in other worlds. Don’s wife Dottie seems to be the centre and the rock of the clan, loving everyone even when her hard-bitten wisdom is ignored, which is pretty much all the time. Her daughter Donna, who has become a grandmother in her thirties, sees her own daughter Danael making exactly the same mistakes that she once made. Then there’s Desiree, just entering her turbulent teens and wondering if she can escape the cycles of despair that the rest of the family seem doomed to repeat. Making occasional appearances (when he’s not in jail or partying with his friends) is Chris, Don and Dottie’s foster son, who has returned their patient love by robbing them on more than one occasion.

In this remarkably intimate film, each family member speaks openly about their troubles, and their efforts to break out of their destructive patterns, but something always stops them. It doesn’t help that their town is economically depressed, with the only steady jobs available at the local gun plant. Wal-mart is not only their only place to shop; its parking lot has become something of a town square, where everyone gathers to watch fireworks. Danael escapes one violent relationship with her baby’s father only to fall into another one. Her choice of men is as limited as her choice of career. The older members of the family smoke ruefully and shake their heads.

And yet. For all the gloom in the film, we can’t help caring deeply for each member of this admittedly damaged family. They are articulate, honest, and often funny, and we root for them, even when we know that nothing much can really change. Palmieri’s camera catches numerous moments of beauty in the Moshers’ lives, and Dottie admits that even with all the town’s liabilities, it’s still her favourite place to be.

Mosher and Palmieri have allowed us into the lives of people who make up a much larger proportion of the population than movies and television would ever lead us to believe. Their lives are hard, but not without meaning. The one curious omission in the film is Donal Mosher himself. It would have been much more interesting to see his interactions with his family, especially considering that he’s one who did “get out” and make his way in the larger world. You’ll hear some of his reasoning for not appearing in the film in the audio Q&A, but for something that started out so personal, he seemed determined not to impose his own feelings onto the film.

October Country is brave and unflinching. It’s interesting to note that the filmmakers gave the family members final cut of the film. Their honesty and eloquence in the midst of their troubles display some of the best qualities that human beings can embody, and the film is a beautiful portrait of these imperfect lives.

Here is the Q&A with directors Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri from after the screening:

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Duration: 14:31

Official site of the film

8/10 (8/10)

Tagged as: family, smalltown

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Kynodontas (Dogtooth)

by James McNally on September 16, 2009 · 2 comments

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Kynodontas (Dogtooth) (Director: Giorgos Lanthimos): Although I saw this film several days ago, it’s been difficult to put my thoughts into words. Lanthimos has delivered an unforgettable and disturbing film, but not one that is easy to critique or even describe. And though I consider myself more of a film reviewer than a critic, it’s even difficult to provide any sort of plot summary.

Briefly stated, Dogtooth concerns a well-to-do Greek family, living in a large suburban house. The parents of three adult children have kept them confined to the house since birth, teaching them their own unique vocabulary (the “sea” is a large armchair, the “phone” is a salt shaker, “zombies” are small yellow flowers, etc.). Though the children appear to be in their twenties, they are dressed like children and spend their days engaged in competitive games to gain the favour of their parents. Occasionally, the father pays Christina, the female security guard at his workplace, to relieve his son’s sexual urges. None of the children have names.

If this isn’t unsettling enough, it soon gets worse. Christina takes a liking to the older daughter and gives her gifts in exchange for sexual favours. One of the gifts is a collection of VHS movies, which the daughter watches after everyone is asleep. This little bit of the outside world begins to obsess her. She asks her sister to call her Bruce, and begins quoting dialogue from Rocky and Jaws. She lashes out violently at her brother, and in one harrowing scene, dances herself into a frenzy. When her father finds out the source of this “evil,” he beats Christina and banishes her from their home. In a matter-of-fact but deeply disturbing conversation with his wife, they agree that one of the sisters will have to take Christina’s place.

The title of the film comes from another of the heartbreaking lies the parents have told their children. They will be ready to leave the house only when their dogtooth (eye tooth) falls out. As the older daughter’s desperation grows, she takes matters into her own hands, and the results are tragic. Aggeliki Papoulia is absolutely fearless in this difficult role, and the rest of cast make a strange and disturbing viewing experience also surprisingly compelling.

This is a film of stunning visuals to accompany the ideas. The house is decorated in 70s kitsch style, which reinforces the feeling of being trapped in time. The children are suffocating in this airless environment, and their sexual and violent urges are treated as something to be controlled. Everything that should give them pleasure is turned into a competition or a test of obedience. In the post-screening Q&A, Lanthimos explained that the genesis of the film came out of a discussion he had with some friends who were getting married. When he expressed his doubts about the institutions of marriage and family, his friends became extremely defensive. He decided to make a film about what would happen if a man went to the ultimate extreme to protect his family. In an odd way, the film reminded me of Cleanflix (review), which I’d seen just the day before. The folly of thinking that evil comes only from outside of us, or that our natural desires are bad, always leads to tragic consequences, and yet it is ingrained in our society. Luckily, it rarely goes to such extremes, but Dogtooth is a particularly unsettling reminder of the danger of idolizing the idea of “family” values.

Here is the Q&A with director Giorgos Lanthimos from after the screening:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Duration: 11:38

9/10 (9/10)

Tagged as: #tiff09, family, greece

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Bomber

by James McNally on March 24, 2009

in Film Festivals,SXSW

Bomber (Director: Paul Cotter): A well-edited trailer and an interesting premise drew me to this film, and I have to say up front that Bomber didn’t quite live up to expectations. It’s a film I wanted to like. Ross is an underemployed art school graduate with an extremely possessive girlfriend. To make things worse, he’s been dragged unwillingly along on a road trip with his parents. His father, Alistar, was a teenage bomber pilot for the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and wants to return to the small village in Germany he accidentally bombed in order to apologize. Director Cotter used only three actors and seven crew, picking the rest of his cast from among the local townspeople. So far, so good. There is actually a lot to like about Bomber: it’s beautifully shot in high-definition, there’s a wonderful soundtrack (especially the songs by Sweden’s Marching Band), and the performances are generally good. Where the film let me down was in its weak script. Hackneyed dialogue and crude attempts at humour didn’t bother most of the audience, but they did grate with this reviewer. The pacing could have been tightened up a bit too. The bits I enjoyed the most were actually the dialogue-free shots of the family van driving through the Dutch and German landscapes, accompanied by the excellent soundtrack music. Unfortunately, those shots could very well have occurred in a car commercial.

Most frustrating for me was the way son Ross progresses from a total emotional meltdown in one scene, trying to attack his parents from outside the van, to later giving them lectures filled with psychobabble like “you just have to express what you’re feeling.” Normally, comedies are full of characters this inconsistent, but the problem is that Bomber isn’t strictly a comedy, and when it went for any sort of emotional payoff, I was unmoved because these characters hadn’t really been developed beyond sketches.

I suspect that Cotter fell prey to the misconception that he needed to be an auteur, both writing and directing his first feature film. Though the idea germinated with him and his own family history (and in fact he has also written a radio play called Dropping Bombs essentially covering the same ground), I think the story would have been better served by bringing in a more experienced scriptwriter, who could have polished Bomber into a much better film.

Page for the film on the director’s web site

Trailer

6/10 (6/10)

Tagged as: #sxsw09, family, fathers-and-sons, germany, road-movie, uk, worldwar2

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C’est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s Not Me, I Swear!)

by James McNally on February 1, 2009

in Cinematheque,Film Festivals

C’est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s Not Me, I Swear!) (Director: Philippe Falardeau): Originally screened at TIFF in 2008, this bittersweet film from Québec returned as part of the Canada’s Top Ten screening series at Cinematheque Ontario this weekend, and I’m so glad I caught up with it.

Based on the memoirs of Bruno Hébert, C’est pas moi, je le jure! is the story of the troubled Doré family in 1968 Québec, told from the very unique perspective of ten-year-old Léon, a liar, vandal and thief who will do just about anything to keep his battling parents from splitting up. When we first meet Léon, he’s hanging from a tree, and we’re unsure if this is the result of a misadventure or a suicide attempt. Much of the rest of the film details the trouble he gets into, and those two possibilities remain in our minds. Clearly his “acting out” is a cry for attention, and he admits as much when he explains that a strategically-lit fire always stops his parents from fighting, and even brings the family together as they struggle to put it out. Despite this example, it’s difficult to convey just how skilfully the film blends humour and heartache, but the mixture is a large part of the film’s appeal.

When he fails to stop his mother from running off to Greece, Léon’s behaviour becomes even more desperate. He bonds with Léa, a girl from a similarly broken family, and they hatch a plan to steal money and buy plane tickets to Greece. Falardeau keeps this material from becoming too grim or too melodramatic by not dwelling for too long on the characters’s feelings. Léon doesn’t mope, he acts, and even though the episodic nature of the film resulted in a few false endings, I was happy to keep following along to see what Léon was going to do next.

He can go from smashing up a neighbour’s house while they’re on vacation to sitting down and playing Schubert on their harpsichord. He behaves terribly, but then feels remorse. He’s a boy trying to deal with an adult world, and without the coping mechanisms of his older brother Jérôme, he just lashes out without thinking. The performance of Antoine L’Écuyer is simply astonishing. He’s like a young Jean-Paul Belmondo, a gangster with a twinkle in his eye. The film itself reminded me of The 400 Blows, another chronicle of a troubled childhood that still sparkled with innocence. Supporting L’Écuyer’s incredible performance, Falardeau’s direction combines the nostalgic setting, some swooping cinematography, and the warm music of Patrick Watson to evoke a time and mood where the transition between childhood and something else felt scary and exhilarating all at once.

Official web site of the film (English version)

9/10 (9/10)

Tagged as: adolescence, canada, childhood, coming-of-age, family, quebec

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