1 Journée (2009)
Directed by Jacob Berger

Film Review

Jacob Berger's follow-up to his well-received psychodrama Aime ton père (2002) - the film that allowed Gérard and Guillaume Depardieu to play out their fraught father-son relationship in front of the camera - is a far more idiosyncratic piece which, according to Berger, explores the 'asymmetry of contemporary life'.  Using the old (and perhaps slightly overused) device of showing us the same events from multiple points of view, 1 Journée is an existential slice of life that is constructed as a jigsaw puzzle, the picture only coming into focus at the end when all the pieces have been slotted neatly together.  En route to this tidy conclusion, the film feels unnervingly disjointed, almost surreal, like a psycho-thriller teetering on the edge of absurdity.  Its disorientating dreamlike texture prompts the spectator to reflect on the nature of reality, and we are left wondering whether real life, as we experience it, isn't just one long dream.  Just where does the boundary between dreams and reality lie?  Does it even exist?

For over a decade, Jacob Berger has pursued a highly successful career in French television, winning both acclaim and sizeable TV audiences with his work on prestigious film dramas and popular series such as Julie Lescaut and Nestor Burma.  The success of Aime ton père, his second film for the cinema, has brought a fresh impetus to Berger's career, and judging by his latest film, another favourite with the critics (and winner of the Best Director award at the 2007 Montréal World Film Festival), the 40-something filmmaker already appears to be well on his way to becoming a very distinguished film auteur, one who is not afraid to depart from the cosy cinematic norms in order to make an authentic artistic statement.  1 Journée is a mature and highly original piece of cinema.  It both exploits and transcends today's creaking filmmaking conventions to deliver something that is fresh and unsettlingly weird, whilst managing to stay harrowingly true to life (the sequence in which a little boy watches his precious calcified seahorse dissolve in water, when he expected it to swim away to freedom, is exquisite in its understated poignancy).

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Jacob Berger is not afraid to embrace the weirdness of daily existence.  In pursuit of the holy grail of narrative coherence and realism, most of today's filmmakers tend to skate over those absurd little mysteries which constantly punctuate our everyday lives, those annoying distractions that seem to defy logic and yet we have neither the time nor the inclination to pursue.  Walk down the street and the chance is you will glimpse at least ten things which look as if they belong to a Monty Python sketch; from another perspective, they may appear perfectly normal.  Rather than ignore these quirky aberrations, Berger collates them and makes them the substance of his film, their nature changing dramatically as we shift from one person's point of view to another.  Assisted by a supremely talented cast (Bruno Todeschini and Natacha Régnier both deserve awards for their performances here), Jacob Berger crafts an engaging off-the-wall film that beautifully evokes the strangeness of existence without ever seeming fanciful or losing its connection with reality.  1 Journée provides a cinema experience that comes close to making us feel like aliens in our own world, opening our eyes to the kaleidoscopic confusion in which we somehow manage to trace out our lives.

Film Synopsis

Serge, a radio presenter, begins his daily routine by leaving his family apartment at the crack of dawn so that he can pay his mistress a brief call before setting out for work.  On his way, he is convinced that he has knocked someone over.  He stops his car, explores the area, but can find no sign of an injured person, so he resumes his journey to his office, somewhat shaken.  To purge his guilt, he makes up his mind to report his supposed crime to the police.  Later that day, having dropped their young son Vlad off at school, Serge's wife Pietra is unable to enter her place of work because of a security alert.  After a strange encounter with a lame dog who shares her taste in modern art, she returns home and discovers that her husband is entertaining another woman in the bedroom.  Shocked by this unexpected infidelity, Pietra makes up her mind to abandon everything and make a fresh start in another country.  Vlad's day will be no less traumatic.  The little girl he has taken a fancy to at school seems incapable of reciprocating the feelings he has for her.  She rejects his gift of a seahorse and is disgusted when he offers to kiss her.  When both of his parents fail to show up to let him into the family home that evening, Vlad is invited into the flat of a neighbour, who happens to be Serge's mistress and the mother of the little girl he is in love with...