T
he film features several different storylines , all of which intersect periodically throughout the film. Jean, a restless teenager who yearns for freedom , tells his sister-in-law Anne (Juliette Binoche) about his dissatisfaction with working on his father's farm. Jean suddenly throws a piece of garbage at Maria, a Romanian woman sitting on the side of the road. Amadou, an African boy, tries to get Jean to apologize and then winds up in a scuffle with him . The police arrives and blame the African. Michael Haneke juxtaposes different characters' different lives belonging to different social classes. Haneke gives us insights into the various lives that have intersected in modern city. We witness an equally racially charged encounter at the end of the film. A man (Arab) begins to harass Anne in a metro. She moves to the other end of the subway car. He follows and sits down beside her and then spits in her face. This is a film about race,culture ,urban rage and alienated identity. But then Haneke's films are not so straightforward as well. Haneke loves to play with our assumptions of reality and he does it well in Binoche's scenes ,some of which may also be scenes from a film her character is making.
In the film , two brothers and a sister witness the disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother's succession. Summer Hours (aka L'Heure d'été) a quiet ,carefully observed film by writer-director Oliver Assayas , a former Cahiers du Cinema critic. In a small town, Helene is a family matriarch who has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of her artist uncle. However, while her eldest son , Frederic , wants to preserve her home after her passing, she harbors no such illusions as she prepares her legacy. When she dies, the family gets together again at her home , which is taken care of by Eloise (Isabelle Sadoyan). Jeremie ,the youngest son , lives with his wife and children in China and is about to start a new job in Beijing. He needs the money from the sale of the family heritages to pay for the move. Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) , a successful designer who lives in the United States , is about to get married. She does not see herself returning to France often in the future and so suggests they sell the house. Frederic ,who wants to keep everything , is disappointed to hear of his brother and sister's responses. But Jeremie and Adrienne see themselves as elite members of the global community with no specific ties to any place or culture. Life will go on , with an acknowledgement of loss that will always seem insufficient. Assayas has made a drama that is filled with bittersweet observations about family , memory , money , globalization and transitoriness.
The film follows the life of a donkey from birth to death , while all the time living it the dignity of being itself -a dumb beast , noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control. It begins with a lovely medium close-up of a small donkey suckling his mother's teat. The baby is discovered by Marie and Jacques ,two children with strong adolescent feelings for each other, and is taken from his mother. As years pass, family strife intervenes and Jacques is forced out of Marie's life by her angry father. So begins Balthazar's journey through life, paralleled almost exactly by Marie's miserable trek. The donkey has several owners ,most of whom exploit him, often with more cruelty than kindness.
With his unerring patience, Bresson scrutinizes and underlines each trait displayed by the film's humans. The magic of Balthazar is that he is the ultimate Bressonian character . Bresson famously used untrained actors in his films -he called them "models" and purposely stripped away all vestiges of personality so that he photographed only a bare essence. The difference between Balthazar and us is that we are smart enough to understand our destiny without being able to control it. The film's restraint is its strength -beautiful monotone images, silences , gestures all laced with a simple piano sonata that underscores the mood of the film perfectly. Transcendental and sometimes joyful, the film (in
typical Bressonian style) eventually gives way to an unbearably sad vision
of 'life .
Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani) has just finished his sentence. He murders Gilbert ,a receiver ,and steals the loot of a break-in. Later he plans for another robbery. His friend Silien (Belmondo) offers to help , and the film revolves around whether Silien is an informant or not. Through both of them's actions , the film explores just how deeply qualities such as friendship and loyality run. Belmondo displays his strength as an actor in playing the informer, Silen. Reggiani did good job as Maurice whose face says more than anything else. The stunning black-and-white cinematography exhibits the grim atmosphere .
The first scene itself is an expressionist masterpiece in the way light reveals Maurice's duality with only half of his face visible , an ambiguity illustrated by the swinging lamp's dizzying effect. Melville's direction is a glourious tribute to classic American crime films of the 1940s and early 50's but has also a strong touch of originality. It deals with small time gangsters whose beliefs in honour and loyality are pretty slim. Almost every character in the film is someone who can not be trusted and has a dual nature about them. This is cinema with style and class and a quintessential addition to the French gangster genre.
In the first scene, firemen break down the front door of a Paris apartment. Michael Haneke's 'Amour' is devastatingly original and daring in the way it examines the effect of love on death.
Georges(Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne ( Emmanuelle Riva) have been married many years, and have grown old together. Both of them are retired piano teachers. One morning, they are eating breakfast together and Anne goes silent. She doesn't respond to Georges as she sits in a confused state. Georges tries to get her attention but she doesn't answer anything. Anne needs to undergo surgery on a blocked artery, but the surgery goes wrong leaving her partially paralyzed. She makes Georges promise not to send her back to the hospital. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) wishes for her mother to go into care ,but Georges doesn't want to break the promise he made to Anne.
Georges and Anne are played magnificently by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. Both of them make the pain and sorrow of their rapidly deteriorating lives very believable to the viewer. Isabelle Huppert also gives a good performance in a short role. This is a straight story of a couple who face the trials of their advanced age with indifference but also humanity.
However this film is not so simple as it is a Michael Haneke film after all. What Haneke's story and screenplay brilliantly achieved is to be able to say so much without saying much at all, making it a very fulfilling experience watching. It has all the stamps of the Haneke cinema- the long stills, the quiet camera movements, the absence of music,the sense of mystery. There are a handful of sequences that cross the metaphysical plane of the film,including the quietly interpolated view of various landscape paintings. Above all,it is the normality that hits hardest. We all know what is going to happen to all of us yet none of us is prepared for it.
One summer day in 1798, a naked boy of eleven of twelve years age is found in a forrest in rural district of southern France. The boy is captured and brought to Paris and was placed in a school for deaf-mutes. The boy lived his life like a wild animal and was unable to speak or understand. He didn't have communication skills. Dr Itard (Truffaut) observes the boy and believes that he is neither deaf, nor "idiot". Doctor thinks that the boy's behaviour is result of living in a deprived atmosphere but he can be educated.
There is question at the root of "Wild Child". The question is whether civilization is good for men or if he'd be happier in natural state? The Wild Child is very pure,ascetic Truffaut. It focuses tightly on the minute details of Victor's education as if to avoid announcing the fact that it's about larger matters.
Truffaut never quite let us become sentimental about Victor's triumphs- his first tears,the day he invents a chalk holder etc. One of the best film by him.
