"Summer Hours is sublime"
“Summer Hours” is sublime. The themes are universal; the details are enticingly
and authentically French. Director Olivier Assayas captures the slightly
uncomfortable rhythm that families fall into when they step out of their own
lives into a family reunion. In this case, three adult children and a passel of
grandchildren have gathered for the 75th birthday of the matriarch at the summer
house where they all grew up.
Hélène
Berthier (Edith Scob) has a lot on her mind. She is tired and finished with life
and needs to explain to her oldest son Frédéric (Charles Berling) what she wants
done with her eclectic and valuable art collection after she dies. And the
house. Hélène knows better than Frédéric that sister Adrienne (Juliette Binoche)
and brother Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), who live respectively in New York and
China with good jobs in the global economy, have carved lives that exclude their
childhood summer home. Even if they made it back once a year, the grandchildren
would never have the ties that come only from growing up in the culture of one
place.
Only Frédéric
lives in Paris and it is sad indeed to watch his dream of family tradition fall
away as his siblings tell him – with tact and kindness – that they can no longer
get back to France. The house will be sold. While Hélène is still alive, the
film deals with the lasting feeling a childhood house offers to those who love
it. She is an accomplished professional who has collected art she loves and she
trusts Frédéric to do right by it. Charles Berling conveys Frédéric’s contained
sadness beautifully.
A great
strength here is that the movie is not weakened by argument among the children.
They will give the important things to the Musée d’Orsay. Each will take one or
two things they love. The rest will be sold at auction. Much attention is paid
to the cherished notebooks of Hélène’s uncle, artist Paul Berthier.
In an
especially poignant scene, Hélène reminds Frédéric, “Memories, secrets, stories
– will be leaving with me. The rest is residue.” She knows an object is an
amalgam of the stories of the artist who made it and the people who loved it.
Without that, objects are as lifeless as the people who loved them.
This is a
story of a family trying to do right by their mother, by the art, and by the
house they had loved. Hélène understood an elusive lesson: today’s global
culture is also a nomadic one. She was at peace with the truth that houses and
objects once loved greatly can now claim only one generation.
Big questions
are laced here into a simple story that becomes utterly compelling in the hands
of Olivier Assayas and a handful of first rank actors. To see the essence,
follow Éloïse (Isabelle Sadoyan), Hélène’s maid. Affection, loyalty, tradition,
simplicity, honesty. The only thing impossible in the new world is keeping the
old.
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