This film is one of the very few that I have been to recently just because of the actors in it. All I knew going in was that Isabelle Huppert and Olivier Gourmet were the co-stars. They are two of the best French-language actors working today and two of the most powerful actors in any language, for that matter. Huppert's role in Michael Haneke's La Pianiste is breathtaking and Gourmet is fabulous in films by the Dardenne brothers (especially L'Enfant). I got lucky with this film, which is a really fresh and interesting movie, by young director Ursula Meier.
I think the only way to describe the genre of the film is 'absurdist tragi-comedy' (OK, now I feel like an asshole for having written it - oh - it's so French!). The film opens with a weird family living in a home on the edge of an unused highway. Their front yard is the asphalt road and they spread their crap everywhere - beach chairs, inflatable kiddie pools, street hockey goals, clotheslines. They seem like a wild bunch, with three kids and two parents, who all play together, bathe together and love one another.
One day, the government decides to re-open the highway without any warning for the family. A road crew comes in to repave the blacktop and the next day the highway has traffic on it again. From here, the film becomes a wonderfully strange story where the family members go a bit crazy as the car exhaust fumes cause their lives to fracture and worsen. All they do all day is listen to traffic reports on the radio and television a the young daughter performs scientific tests on the air quality.
I guess you could watch the film as a critique on government stupidity or pollution and environmental degradation - but I think that would be missing the point. I think this is a wonderful look at the strangeness of family life and a farce about modernity in general. It is more a stylistic experiment, I think, than a narrative story, in many ways, as the over-the-top but straight-faced tone makes us appreciate the differences between this family and normal people becomes clear.
No surprise, the acting performances are wonderful. Huppert and Gourmet are great, as are their kids, played wonderfully by Adelaide Leroux, Madeleine Budd and Kacey Mottet-Klein (OK, you might never hear of these actors ever again, but they deserve mentioning). The oldest daughter, played by Leroux is out of high school, but seems mostly interested in tanning in the front yard. She's a kid who is much too cool for her family, but still loves them (ah, France, where kids never leave home!). The middle daughter, played by Budd, is serious and clinical, studying the effects the highway is having on the mental and physical health of the family. The young son, played by Mottet-Klein, is joyful and loves the adventure of living where they do, but worried about the breakup of their group.
Meier's style is sarcastic and weird. Moments remind me of films by Emir Kusturica, especially Arizona Dream, and the quirky and wonderful L'Iceberg by Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon with it's fantasy and off-kilter tone. It is also rather sad, dark and gritty at times, which brings to mind the Dardenne brothers' La Promesse. The cinematography by Agnès Godard (who also did a nice job with 35 Shots of Rum this year) is central to the emotional storyline.
This is a small, small movie, that I hope will be released on DVD- though there's a good chance it won't be. I'm a bit upset that the title is so dull (I believe it is the same in French), but it does bring out some interesting associations: "home, home on the rage"; "home is where the heart is"; "home sweet home". It feels like a pure work by Ionesco, following in a long tradition of French absurdism.
Stars: 3 of 4
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