Thursday, July 18, 2013
Lost for a while
Today's film was André Techine's
France has been invaded and Odile, a mother with two kids, is on the road. Evacuation.
There is strafing. Everything blows up with the car.
A young man, teenager actually, takes over and helps them escape to a villa not too far from the scene.
They lie low there. Isolated, for awhile, from the world and its terrors.
Not exactly an idyll but close enough.
Relationships develop between the four. Each has a story which is slow to unfold. But unfold it does.
Character comes into play as well as the elements of survival without class or cultural separations.
This is a lovely film with an ugly backdrop which rises to engulf the four people. It is inevitable.
But in the meantime, things happen which are more natural in a way than their lives before this.
Emanuelle Bart and the beautiful Gaspard Uliel star as the couple who find and then lose each other.
This is war. War is hell.
An intense film which has a lot to say and does so in a short, beautiful way. Techiné is a master. This film is a small gem.
Techiné draws my attention because of his reputation with gay themed or gay inclusive films. This is not one of those but it does show his firm hand with uncertain relationships. People who would not normally mix, thrown together without any warning or preparation.
Lost in time.
I enjoyed the film and the acting. The bucolic background is beautiful. The ugliness of war is far away. For awhile.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
