L'Arrière pays (1998)
Directed by Jacques Nolot

Film Review

Actor and screenwriter Jacques Nolot directs this poignant and intensely personal work, his first full-length film, with maturity and skill.  The film's tone is relentlessly sombre, reinforced by some very creditable introspective performances and some achingly beautiful photography.  Whilst the mood becomes a little heavy and wearying towards the end of the film, L'Arrière-pays does offer a touching and ironic portrait of life in rural France, far removed from the cosy idyll that is often perceived by outsiders.

Film Synopsis

It has been ten years since Jacques Pruez last visited the little village in the south of France where he grew up.  Now a hearty fifty-year-old, who has had some modest success as a television actor and is comfortable with his homosexuality, Jacques returns to the place of his youth to visit his dying mother.  It is the perfect excuse for him to reconnect with his past and reawaken memories of his childhood and adolescence, whilst looking up members of his family whom he hasn't seen in years.  He is happy to re-establish contact with his brother, who now works as a policeman in Bordeaux, as well as his former friends, his neighbours and, of course, his father Yvan, a hairdresser who has no intention of retiring.

The death of his mother comes as no surprise to Jacques, but all the same it is a difficult loss to get over.  He decides to stay on for a while longer, if only to support his ageing father, who is more deeply affected by the bereavement than he is prepared to admit.  The actor is taken by surprise when his aunts let slip that Yvan is not his real father.  As his visit draws to a close, Jacques realises how much things have changed since he was last in this part of the world.  This becomes painfully evident when he calls on an old friend and spends an evening with him, exchanging memories of their now long departed youth...