A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net, May 6, 2009.
Summer Hours is about death,
but not death in the way that it is often packaged and sold to us in movies.
Defining grief is a difficult thing. Why do we mourn? Do we grieve for the
person who has died or for the ones he (or she) has left behind? Or is there
something deeper to it? Do we perhaps feel a sense of loss that there will be
no new memories of this person to reside in our thoughts alongside those that
have long since taken root? These are ideas filmmaker Olivier Assayas explores with Summer
Hours, a picture that examines the repercussions of death with almost
clinical precision. He does not manipulate; there is no melodrama. However, by
employing such exactingness, he permits us to consider how the experiences of
his characters mirror our thoughts and actions in similar circumstances. These
are not superheroes doing unusual things; these are men and women working
through seemingly mundane matters. Nothing much happens during the course of Summer Hours, and it will bore some
viewers to distraction, but those who relate to what Assayas is attempting to
do will come away from the experience in a contemplative mood.
The
plot is as minimal is one can get. A family - consisting of adult children
Frédéric (Charles Berling), Adrienne
(Juliette Binoche), and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), and assorted
grandchildren - gather at the longtime home of matriarch Hélène (Edith Scob) to celebrate her 75th
birthday. She doesn't live long enough to see 76. In less than a year, Hélène
has died and her children are left to divide her considerable assets (her uncle
was a famous painter and art collector). This process is presented in detail.
Frédéric would like to keep the house and some of the possessions, but he lacks
the money to buy out his siblings and, since they live abroad (Adrienne in New York
and Jérémie in China); they have no desire to retain ownership.
For
Frédéric, who holds a romanticized notion of his mother's house, losing the
property as well as the woman who inhabited it is a tremendous blow. It forces
him to become reconciled to an immutable fact of life: the status quo is
largely an illusion. His fondest hopes (expressed to Héléne before her death)
are that the house can stay in the family so his children and grandchildren
will be able to enjoy summer vacations there as he and his siblings once did.
What he has not understood, however, is that retaining ownership of the house
means little. The memories are the same regardless of whether he owns the place
or not, and the changes in times and attitudes mean that the setting in which those
memories were created has passed as surely as his mother has died. Assayas
underscores this point in the movie's final scene, which illustrates that a summer holiday for today's youth is not
the same as it once was.
There's
a telling symmetry in the way Summer
Hours is structured. It begins and ends in the same physical location but,
even though only a year of physical time has passed, the gap is one of a
generation. Sylvie (Alice de
Lencquesaing), Frédéric's teenage daughter, is the constant. At the
beginning of the film, she is living in the fragile, idealized world that her
father holds dear. At the end, freed from the constraining presence of her
parents and grandmother, she acts as one might expect a girl of her age to act.
She represents the exclamation point at the end of Assayas' commentary.
It
goes without saying that Summer Hours
is talky and therefore satisfies stereotypes of what constitutes a French film.
The dialogue lacks the compelling quality of Eric Rohmer, but is interesting
for a different reason. The conversations represent the kind of logical,
down-to-Earth discussions people in this situation might have. Under normal
circumstances, it can be a trying and sometimes contentious act to divide the
property of a deceased relative. Here, there are added complications: two of
the beneficiaries are leaving the country and many of the possessions are
valuable. Estate tax issues must be resolved and some of the furniture and
artwork will be donated to the d’Orsay Museum in Paris. There's a poignant (yet
not overdone) scene late in the film where Frédéric and his wife see Héléne's Art
Nouveau period desk on display, and he remarks that it looks caged. It is no longer his; it is now
available for public viewing but, for the most part, the passing individuals
don't care. It's just another seemingly unremarkable object in a collection.
Summer Hours attracted two of
France's acting luminaries, and their presence elevates the material. Charles
Berling has the central role; the movie is largely told from his perspective.
Juliette Binoche, with blonde hair, has a secondary part. Also noteworthy is
that Kyle Eastwood (the son of Clint
and brother of Alison) has a small part as Adrienne's younger American
boyfriend. Assayas is a big enough figure in international cinema to be able to
attract significant names, like Binoche, even when their parts are not
especially demanding.
The
title is entirely appropriate because it evokes the kind of pleasant memories
that form the foundation of Frédéric's longing. It's easy to see how some
viewers will find Summer Hours an
uninvolving experience. Emotionally, it's a little chilly, and the kind of
intellectual investment it seeks to stimulate will work only with some viewers
(those who have suffered a recent loss will relate more intimately that those
who have not). Anyone who discovers more to this movie than much talk and little action will develop
a rapport with the characters. They are reflections of us, and therein lies
their ability to compel attention. [Berardinelli’s rating: *** out of 4]
Labels:
drama, family, French-language, Paris, reunion
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