Three adult siblings reunite for a final visit with their mother, and then to manage her estate once she’s passed away, in Summer Hours, a superior family drama that, despite its apparent dissimilarities from his recent work, finds French director Olivier Assayas once again charting the effects of globalization on human consciousness and relationships. Frédéric (Charles Berling) is an economist who thinks lowly of the global economy (dubbing it a “religion”), and that conviction, coupled with his desire to continue residing in France with his wife and children, puts him at odds with sister Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), an individualistic art dealer in NYC, and younger brother Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), a businessman stationed in Asia for work. International finance is the force that separates them, both from each other and – once their mother (Edith Scob) dies, and Adrienne and Jérémie vote (against Frédéric’s wishes) to sell her beloved summer house and donate their great-uncle’s art collection to the Museum d’Orsay – from their memories. Assayas’ story grapples with the way places and spaces function as vessels for personal pasts, and how those locations also hold within them dreams of the future. With a sly, deft touch marked by elegant fade-outs between his vignettes, as well as sustained takes that give conversations room to naturally stretch, mature and evolve, Assayas expresses the melancholy of childhood’s ultimate end as well as globalization’s reconfiguration of traditional notions of self, family and history through the creation of a mobile, geographically and culturally untethered citizenry. Nonetheless, Summer Hours is first and foremost enlivened by its cast’s superbly artless performances, with Binoche in particular expressing, with amazingly versatile, engaging naturalism, a complexity of emotions and motivations blessedly free of actorly personality-trait underlining or character-summarizing statements and gestures.
(2008 New York Film Festival)
I'm so glad you liked this film, it's stayed with me as probably my favorite film at Toronto this year - since I'm not really counting "Ashes Of Time", which would be my #1, and it's pretty much tied with "A Christmas Tale". I'm excited too because I loved "Flight of The Red Balloon" so much (as I know you did too). This bodes well for this Museum D'Orsay project, which now has two successes to its name, and two more great directors in queue. My question to you is what you thought of "Boarding Gate", which everyone's seemed to hate except me and Phelps (and Dargis). Assayas is always up and down, but I think he's had a good year this year, and "Boarding Gate" played to me like a better version of his "demonlover", which I'm not a fan of. "Summer Hours" is completely different though, to those who haven't seen it, and know Assayas, think "Late August, Early September" all grown up. --Sam C. Mac
Posted by: FIRONLINE | October 06, 2008 at 02:34 AM
When is someone going to admit that demonlover is Assayas' best film?
Posted by: demonlover | May 13, 2011 at 12:46 AM