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Nue propriété
2006 Drama
Review
Having won acclaim for his first two full-length films – Folie privée (2004) and Ça rend heureux (2006) -
Belgian director Joachim Lafosse continued to pick up plaudits by the
bucket load with his third feature, a brooding portrait of a
dysfunctional family that has a darkly Brechtian feel to it. The
main characters in the drama – a single mother and her two sons – are
trapped in a web of mutual dependency that ultimately drives them into bitter
conflict, with devastating consequences. Despite the film’s stark minimalist style and the apparent simplicity of the story it has to tell, Nue propriété is a profoundly intense work that explores the complex and fraught relationship between a mother and her teenage sons with a rare lucidity and sincerity. Convincing performances from a highly talented cast (including Jérémie Rénier and Isabelle Huppert at their best) - bring an uncompromising realism which, along with some unsettlingly voyeuristic camera work, make this feel more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary than a drama. This is an arresting and original film, crafted with maturity and insight, and suffused with pathos, poetry and some very disturbing undercurrents. © James Travers 2009 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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Director:
Joachim Lafosse
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Jérémie Renier, Yannick Renier, Kris Cuppens, Patrick Descamps Synopsis
François and Thierry are twin brothers who live with their
mother, Pascale, in a large house in the country. Tensions
between the adolescent siblings and their mother are heightened by the
latter’s refusal to have anything to do with her ex-husband, who
abandoned her some years ago to start a family with another
woman. Encouraged by her new lover, Jan, Pascale decides to sell
the family home and open a guesthouse in the Alps. When her sons
hear of this, they are outraged, and the relationship between the three
family members takes a dramatic turn for the worse...
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