I saw this film last night as a part of the Calgary International Film Festival, a festival which has steadily grown over the past few years. It was directed and written by Michael Haneke, and starred Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil and Maurice Bénichou. Of these three actors, Juliette Binoche is likely the best known, given that she has been in a number of English language productions ("Chocolat", "The English Patient", etc.) Daniel Auteuil has been in many films, but I had only seen him in "Sade", and "The Widow of St Pierre" (both released in 2000). Maurice Bénichou is probably best known to English audiences as Dominique Bretodeau, the first man that Amelie Poulain helps in the film "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain."
The film played without any incidental music whatsoever, which was a surprising change from most films. It wasn't glaringly obvious, but after about twenty minutes, one starts to notice that the film isn't narrated by the usual musical emphases. From reading up on this film at IMDb, it sounds like this director is known for 'minimalist' films.
It started off slowly, and I even began to think that I might have made a mistake in coming to see it, as the first scenes were outside shots of a Paris-area apartment block... and then the tape would be rewound and there were voice-overs from Auteuil and Binoche discussing the oddity of having this tape delivered. They play a middle-class (though I'd be inclined to say upper middle class, at the very least) couple with one son. She works for a publisher, and he hosts a TV show (intellectual, it seemed to be mostly hosting authors and critics.) A second tape comes, and they are all wrapped in strange childlike drawings. Even their son, Pierrot, receives a strange card at school.
Eventually, the latest tape shows a driving car, street signs, and then stops outside the door of a low-rent apartment. Georges (Auteuil) determines that they made find some answers there, and he has a hunch as to whom it will be.
The film ends with nothing being solved for certain, but with many things that happened in between. Some of the scenes were quite grim, like Bénichou's suicide, and a boy beheading a rooster. I don't think that this film was meant to have closure in the typical way of films, but was rather a look at a specific chunk of time in this family's life. There is some comment upon class and race as Bénichou's character is Algerian and his family were workers on Georges' parents' farm. I know little of the history between Algeria and France, unfortunately, so the French/Algerian thing wasn't entirely obvious to me, but the class/race difference was.
This film was thought-provoking, and I am still pondering it the day after, which rarely happens with the more mainstream films that wrap things up neatly within their allotted two hours.
I especially liked Daniel Auteuil in this; his character Georges Laurent was very three dimensional, and he acted realistically, without becoming melodramatic. Especially poignant was when his son had not come home and Anne (Binoche) was falling apart - he held himself together until late in the night and he returned home. He only gave way to helpless sobs when he was alone in the kitchen.
Also, like any regular human being (and not some movie ideal), he had periods where he was unsympathetic to the viewer, for example, as he threatened the man (Bénichou) who was the orphaned son of workers at his parents' estate. Instead of asking for his assistance with figuring out why these tapes were arriving, and the drawings, he barged ahead and accused and threatened him.
Juliette Binoche, as Anne Laurent, was excellent as well, though I found her character to be slightly less important, and her manner of dress and other particulars made her fade into the background slightly as compared to Georges. However, as the movie progressed she became more and more apparent, and had more influence and notice.
I would like to see this film again, just to be able to ponder it further. I also wonder if I might notice things on the second viewing that I missed last night. I'll keep an eye out for when this film is released on DVD. In the meantime I will look covetously upon all the DVDs at Amazon with Daniel Auteuil, and wish for some extra money :)
The film played without any incidental music whatsoever, which was a surprising change from most films. It wasn't glaringly obvious, but after about twenty minutes, one starts to notice that the film isn't narrated by the usual musical emphases. From reading up on this film at IMDb, it sounds like this director is known for 'minimalist' films.
It started off slowly, and I even began to think that I might have made a mistake in coming to see it, as the first scenes were outside shots of a Paris-area apartment block... and then the tape would be rewound and there were voice-overs from Auteuil and Binoche discussing the oddity of having this tape delivered. They play a middle-class (though I'd be inclined to say upper middle class, at the very least) couple with one son. She works for a publisher, and he hosts a TV show (intellectual, it seemed to be mostly hosting authors and critics.) A second tape comes, and they are all wrapped in strange childlike drawings. Even their son, Pierrot, receives a strange card at school.
Eventually, the latest tape shows a driving car, street signs, and then stops outside the door of a low-rent apartment. Georges (Auteuil) determines that they made find some answers there, and he has a hunch as to whom it will be.
The film ends with nothing being solved for certain, but with many things that happened in between. Some of the scenes were quite grim, like Bénichou's suicide, and a boy beheading a rooster. I don't think that this film was meant to have closure in the typical way of films, but was rather a look at a specific chunk of time in this family's life. There is some comment upon class and race as Bénichou's character is Algerian and his family were workers on Georges' parents' farm. I know little of the history between Algeria and France, unfortunately, so the French/Algerian thing wasn't entirely obvious to me, but the class/race difference was.
This film was thought-provoking, and I am still pondering it the day after, which rarely happens with the more mainstream films that wrap things up neatly within their allotted two hours.
I especially liked Daniel Auteuil in this; his character Georges Laurent was very three dimensional, and he acted realistically, without becoming melodramatic. Especially poignant was when his son had not come home and Anne (Binoche) was falling apart - he held himself together until late in the night and he returned home. He only gave way to helpless sobs when he was alone in the kitchen.
Also, like any regular human being (and not some movie ideal), he had periods where he was unsympathetic to the viewer, for example, as he threatened the man (Bénichou) who was the orphaned son of workers at his parents' estate. Instead of asking for his assistance with figuring out why these tapes were arriving, and the drawings, he barged ahead and accused and threatened him.
Juliette Binoche, as Anne Laurent, was excellent as well, though I found her character to be slightly less important, and her manner of dress and other particulars made her fade into the background slightly as compared to Georges. However, as the movie progressed she became more and more apparent, and had more influence and notice.
I would like to see this film again, just to be able to ponder it further. I also wonder if I might notice things on the second viewing that I missed last night. I'll keep an eye out for when this film is released on DVD. In the meantime I will look covetously upon all the DVDs at Amazon with Daniel Auteuil, and wish for some extra money :)