Summer Hours (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] [Import]

A family returns home to celebrate the birthday of their aging mother. Their ancestral home is like a living museum, containing the works of her uncle, a celebrated painter, and of so many other important artists. Before long, she will be gone, and she knows that the treasures she had accumulated and preserved will no longer remain intact. It is a subtle story of a family, like all families, with things that are left unsaid but need to be spoken, with expectations that cannot possibly be fulfilled. It is told here by Oliver Assayas with a remarkably light touch, with a beautiful palette, a fluid camera and seamless edits. The acting is pitch-perfect throughout - it doesn't feel like acting.

I couldn't help but think of this as a lighter counterpoint to the more melancholy, but more playful and inventive, A Christmas Tale by Arnaud Desplechin, whose sensibilities strike me as similar to those of Assayas - both films deal with similar issues of inheritance, of loss, of communication failures, and yet, while this film is less deliberately avant-garde than that one, it feels every bit as profound and yet more delicate, more subtle. In addition to displaying the changes in France over generations, the film reflects on larger questions. At what point do personal relics, a desk, a vase, a display case used as a kind of closet, become cultural artefacts? To whom can art belong? What is the connection between usage and display value of an artwork? What makes it art, after all?

I caught this during its theatrical release, but am very happy to hear it is being released by Criterion. The look is stunning and it would be a shame to see it released in a way that doesn't do justice to its imagery.

Here's what to expect on the Criterion disc:

-New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Olivier Assayas and approved by Assayas and cinematographer Eric Gautier (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
-New video interview with Assayas
-Making-of documentary featuring interviews with Assayas and actors Charles Berling and Juliette Binoche, and showing the cast and crew on set
-Inventory, an hour-long documentary by Olivier Gonard, shot partly in Paris's Musée d'Orsay, that examines the film's approach to art
-New and improved English subtitle translation
-PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones

Yes, this is an "art" fillum and it is French so it's not for everyone, but bear with me on both scores. The art in this movie is actual art that three siblings inherit along with their family home after their mother dies. The French part shouldn't dissuade those of you who hate subtitled flicks or artsy fartsy European fare--it's really a poignant, loving portrayal of a family yet once based in the reality of what one has to deal with when a loved one dies and you're left with their memories (in this case their valued objects and home).

If this story was done by Hollywood you'd have shrill voices screaming and fighting over the valuable art. As it was done by the French, it's done in a way that seems natural among two brothers and a sister over how to dispose of a family estate in a way that brings honor and dignity to the family name.

There are some great scenes that show up museums and the "coldness" of the way they do business and subsequently display other people's memories where all context and love of art is pretty much lost once removed from its original owner's homes.

The dialogue is first-rate and so natural. The story is also so modern and speaks of the globalization of our modern world and how a culture can be chipped away just by family members moving away. I won't ruin that aspect of the movie for anyone but you'll see how profound the effect is and yet in the end the grandchildren show all is not lost for France when its citizens move abroad.

The movie also looks fantastic. You actually feel as if you are in a wonderful jumbled French country home that actually feels like a home and the art pieces are alive (i.e., one famous vase gets used constantly for flowers rather than just being a display behind a glass case).

(Kudos also for the choice of the Plasticines' song near the end of the movie to showcase France's punk pop of today.)

Interesting, gentle sad (but not depressing) story of the inevitability of loss and chance.

Three siblings decide whether to keep or sell their mother's country home and art collection
after her death, exploring how we give 'things' meaning, and how that meaning changes due
to context, generation, and what we need from them.

But while the ideas are intriguing, and the acting good it never quite reached the deepest
level of feeling or thoughtfulness for me.

Called a masterpiece by a number of critics, and something close by others, I cant quite go
there, but it is an intelligent, quietly moving experience, that I'll probably revisit yet again,
since it grew on me on a second viewing.