This delicious film from my Netflix queue deserves a whole post of it's very own. Summer Hours, (L'heure d'été), 2008, written and directed by contemporary French filmmaker, Olivier Assayas, opens in a gloriously crumbling old country house an hour north of Paris. (Remember how I adore patina?) The 75 year old Hélène (Edith Scob) has gathered her three children (Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jeremie Renier) and their families for her birthday, and discusses with them the fate of her extraordinary art collection, comprised by a dozen circa 1900 masterworks, including furniture by Louis Majorelle and Josef Hoffmann, glass and ceramic vases by Félix Bracquemond and Atelier d'Auteuil, and paintings by Camille Corot and Odilon Redon. The art was inherited from her famous uncle (and possibly incestuous lover), Paul Berthier, a fictional post-Impressionist painter. It's thrilling that many of these gorgeous pieces are actually on loan from the Musée d'Orsay and star, right along with the actors, in the film.
This might seem like an ordinary family melodrama, but Assayas takes the story to a highly poetical level. It's rich in meaning, but not sentimental, dealing with the relationships between people and art and the past. It conjures images of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard; the leaving behind of a lovely era and gently moving into a new order. I liked this one so much, I wanted to pop it back in the machine and watch it again. It's gentle, but ravishing. A perfect summer film.
My friend Eleanor, over at Thatchwick, recently posted a review on the film Blue, 1994. Being a huge fan of Juliette Binoche, I immediately added it to my Netflix queue. I certainly wasn't disappointed in this powerful, sensual, quiet and intelligent film. It is the first in a trilogy of films created by Krzysztof Kieslowski and his writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz for France's bicentennial, yet stands very well on it's own merits. The titles and the themes of the films come from the three colors of the French flag representing liberty, equality, and fraternity. Blue examines liberation through the eyes of a woman (Binoche) who loses her famous composer husband and young daughter in an auto accident. Overcome with mystery and tragedy, she struggles to come to terms with the secrets of her dead husband's career and life. Kieslowski masterfully weaves the haunting musical score with a subdued color pallet of blues. I think this just might be Binoche's best performance ever, in this story of loss, forgiveness and liberation.
This delicious film from my Netflix queue deserves a whole post of it's very own. Summer Hours, (L'heure d'été), 2008, written and directed by contemporary French filmmaker, Olivier Assayas, opens in a gloriously crumbling old country house an hour north of Paris. (Remember how I adore patina?) The 75 year old Hélène (Edith Scob) has gathered her three children (Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jeremie Renier) and their families for her birthday, and discusses with them the fate of her extraordinary art collection, comprised by a dozen circa 1900 masterworks, including furniture by Louis Majorelle and Josef Hoffmann, glass and ceramic vases by Félix Bracquemond and Atelier d'Auteuil, and paintings by Camille Corot and Odilon Redon. The art was inherited from her famous uncle (and possibly incestuous lover), Paul Berthier, a fictional post-Impressionist painter. It's thrilling that many of these gorgeous pieces are actually on loan from the Musée d'Orsay and star, right along with the actors, in the film. 
This might seem like an ordinary family melodrama, but Assayas takes the story to a highly poetical level. It's rich in meaning, but not sentimental, dealing with the relationships between people and art and the past. It conjures images of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard; the leaving behind of a lovely era and gently moving into a new order. I liked this one so much, I wanted to pop it back in the machine and watch it again. It's gentle, but ravishing. A perfect summer film.
