Andr Tchin 4 Film Collector's Edition (Htel des Amriques / J'embrasse pas / My Favorite Season / Wild Reeds)

"I saw to it that she has a tv-set in her room".(The daughter, trying to soothe her conscience).

Emilie (Catherine Deneuve) and her brother Antoine (Daniel Auteuil) have not seen each other in three years, but their mother's (Marthe Villalonga) stroke brings them together again. Emilie decides to assume her responsibility and lodge her mother at her house, a solution that makes no one happy. Emilie's marriage exists on paper only and she has difficulties in establishing personal contacts with her grown-up children. Her mother is not very sociable either, and feels like an alien element in her daughter's family. Christmas arrives and when Antoine's quarrel with Emilie's husband turns into a brawl Emilie decides to give up her marriage and her mother packs and moves in with her son. But their living together fails equally. She has the feeling the her son is angry with her: "Have I kept him from living? Little pleasures?". She decides to go home.

Summer arrives and the second stroke. The mother is outwardly composed when she takes place in the car that drives her to her new home. She is so resigned that she killed all her chicken before leaving her house for the last time. She shows no interest for the landscape or her children's incessant talking.

Antoine tries to convince his sister to go to live with him: "We have two brains from one womb" but she hesitates: "I'm afraid of you, Antoine!". The siblings buckle under the nervous strain while their mother is nearly frantic: Her physical condition is serious enough, but the company of senile and mentally disturbed patients finishes her off...

Ah! Why can't director Andre Techine be a little bit more like Claude Chabrol? Chabrol, in Techine's place would have built up an ominous atmosphere and let the audience suspect that something alarming and unspeakable is going on...But Techine has the bad habit of waving a bait (incest) in front of the audience and then leading them up the garden path. The film is well constructed (the four seasons) and the shots look like a perfect dream. The subject - two siblings don't know how to handle their mother and their own fear of old age - can't fail to touch and the performances of the elder generation are marvelous. Villalonga is resolute but ultimately embittered and her dogged attempts to retain her mental faculties are heartbreaking. Deneuve gives one of her greatest performances: warm and noble, trying to give proof of moral strength, outraged to be forced in the defensive and feel guilty about things she cannot change. Sometimes we catch Auteuil at an "arriere pensee" when he unmasks his feelings in his cryptic monologues. He becomes more and more erratic and suddenly he cracks up. But this is just one side of the film. The scenes with the younger generation seem not directed at all, as if the director told them: Folks, you're free. Do your own thing. The scene when Deneuve's son invites his girlfriend to strip in front of his sister (Deneuve's own daughter Chiara) is especially repellent, and Deneuve's "bed-scene" on a park-bench is sickening and unmotivated (The motive was of course to pep a static film up). MA SAISON PREFEREE is a very unrewarding film. High production values but big disappointment. I wish this film were trash, so that I can trample on it. Since it isn't I feel blackmailed...

"My Favorite Season" is a wonderful piece of French filmmaking.The intelligent and subtle screenplay, the brillant cast, the beautiful setting of the French countryside,marvelous music, all under the expert direction of Andre Techine, had me hanging on every word,left me wanting more of this exquiste film, and thinking about it for quite some time afterwards.

Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil, work beautifully together as Emilie and Antoine, brother and sister trying to cope with a very dysfunctional family life, their own troubled relationship and the declining health of their aging mother.This is a family that tries very hard to just like one another, and with the passsing of each season,the changes in their lives run a gamut of emotions. Deneuve, Auteuil, and the rest of this outstanding cast will draw you in with their intuitive performances.It is a film that will involve you from the first frame to the last.

Fox Lorber has a knack for selecting and bringing to DVD some of the best international works out there. "My Favorite Season" is among the best of those. Overall, the DVD presents a nice clear picture in widescreen. The film is in French with subtitles in English. I did not see any way to delete the subtitles though. A trailer, and biographies are also included.

A wonderful emotional drama, and fine piece of filmmaking...enjoy...Laurie