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.
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Next Jacques Nolot film: La Chatte à deux têtes (2002)
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...
Franz Kafka's letters to his fiancée Felice Bauer not only reveal a soul in torment; they also give us a harrowing self-portrait of a man appalled by his own existence.