Film Review
In the deceptively titled
Un conte
de Noël, director Arnaud Desplechin offers a portrait of
family disharmony that is a truly blood-chilling affair. Recall
that quaint rose-tinted view of family life, where parents and children
lived together in domestic bliss, happy in each other's company and
always ready to lend each other succour in a time of
crisis?
Desplechin must have missed that particular Disney
movie and instead shows us something much nearer to reality, the
proverbial family from Hell. Think of it as
King Lear without the hugs and
kisses.
From the outset, we are spared none of the sublime detestation that the
members of one hyper-dysfunctional middleclass family have for one
another. The eldest daughter callously blackmails her father into
ostracising her brother because, in her eyes, he is a bad apple.
In the best tradition of Shakespearean tragedy and Marx Brothers farce,
this outcast turns out to be the one person who can cure his mother of a
life-threatening cancer via a bone marrow transplant.
Naturally, the son and his mother hate one another so much that they can't resist
trading insults even when they have agreed to go ahead with the
operation (the only point of compatibilty between these two being their bone marrow).
The other members of this big happy family are not
much better and when they all come together one Christmas peace on
Earth and goodwill to all men are most definitely
not on the agenda. Heaven
help us if any of this lot ever end up as UN peace envoys.
So, there isn't much joy to be found in this film, a rambling epic of
steaming waspish odium which makes the Siege of Mafeking
look like a teddy bear's picnic. The characters have grown so used to
their loathing for one another that they take it for granted and
exchange acrid unpleasantries with the casual indifference of strangers
swapping a half-hearted yuletide greeting. Desplechin's
clinically cold mise-en-scène, which has all the reassuring
comfort of the mortician's slab, accentuates the stark lack of humanity
that defines this family unit and evokes a subtly tragic quality that
is more visceral than acerbic. It is harder to imagine a bleaker,
more distressing portrait of a collection of human beings than
this. After this, Harold Pinter will have you rolling in the
aisles.
Even more sombre in tone than Desplechin's morbid debut film
La
Sentinelle (1992),
Un
conte de Noël is the director's darkest and most compelling
film to date. Whilst Desplechin's own contribution is not to be
downplayed, what most holds our attention are the impeccable
contributions from a superlative ensemble cast. Catherine Deneuve
and Melvil Poupaud join Desplechin regulars Mathieu Amalric, Anne
Consigny and Emmanuelle Devos in a stellar cast that could hardly fail
to make this a tour de force for the man who is now rated one of
France's most capable auteur filmmakers. The restrained, nuanced
performances from an exceptional cast
serve to heighten the dark humour in Desplechin's
deliciously cruel screenplay, leaving us in no doubt that when it comes
to mutual loathing and collective backstabbing there is no
place like home. The film's langourous pace and apparent dearth
of emotion may be a little off-putting at first, but once you have seen
the humorous side and have grown accustomed to the composed
intellectual mudslinging it becomes weirdly addictive, like
most blood sports.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Arnaud Desplechin film:
Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (2015)
Film Synopsis
Abel and Junon Vuillard are a happily married couple with three children
who could not be more different. Although a great deal of water has
passed under the bridge since, early in their marriage the couple suffered
a terrible tragedy which time still hasn't healed. Their first son
Joseph died at the age of seven because they couldn't find a suitable bone
marrow donor for him. The couple resorted to having another child,
Henri, in the hope of saving him, but in vain. Even the birth of another
son, Ivan, could not make up for the loss of Joseph.
Now, many years later, the couple's eldest child, Elizabeth is making a career
for herself as a playwright in Paris. Meanwhile, her brother Henri
is digging a deep financial hole for himself through his risky business ventures
and Ivan, in his haste to grow up too fast, is now a reluctant father with
two peculiar children of his own. Of the three siblings, only Elizabeth
appears to have a promising future ahead of her. She has done her best
to help Henri in the past, but now she has become exasperated by his constant
calls for help. She offers to bail him out one last time, providing
he agrees to disappear from the family and never return. Heavily in
debt, Henri has no choice but to agree.
It isn't many years later that Henri's unexplained absence from the family
is regretted. Junon now finds herself afflicted with the same terrible
condition that cost the life of her first-born child. Her only hope
of survival lies in a bone marrow transplant, and as luck would have it Henri
is the only viable donor. It is up to Elizabeth's teenage son Paul
to find Henri and get him to return to the bosom of the family that still
despises him for all the trouble he has caused. It promises to be quite
an eventful family reunion this Christmas...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.