Friday, February 8, 2019
598 - Summer Hours, France, 2008. Dir. Olivier Assayas.
What about the grandchildren?
Sylvie is the tall, curly-headed one. She stands out at the beginning of the film. Because she is older and taller than the others. She is starting to grow. She helps one of the little ones when he stumbles.
The kids are walking through the woods. Down the hill. Through the meadow. To the stream. On the beautiful estate owned by their grandmother. Helene Marly.
Helene loves art. And she collects it. Paintings. Drawings. Sculptures. Porcelains. Crystal. Silver. Glass. Vases. Panels. Furniture. Specifically two paintings by Camille Corot. Panels by Odilon Redon. A Louis Majorelle Art Moderne desk and chair. A Felix Bracquemond vase. An Atelier d'Auteuil vase. A Josef Hoffmann armoire. The pieces of a Degas sculpture, kept in a plastic grocery bag, that her sons broke when they were little.
And the work of her uncle. Paul Berthier. His sketchbook. His drawing of the view out the patio door. A couple of his paintings.
Helen is turning 75. And she has her grown children over to the villa for her birthday. Adrienne comes from New York. Jeremie, from China. Frederic, from Paris, ten miles to the South. The men bring their wives and children. Adrienne talks about her boyfriend. And reveals that he is now her fiance.
The family is loving. Warm and generous. Intelligent and worldly. Hard-working and dedicated. They enjoy one another's company. It is good to be together again. To be home.
They have their disagreements. Jeremie works for a sneaker company. Adrienne as a non-corporate does not fully approve of his profession. Frederic has become an economist at the behest of his father. He does not really love it, so he fashions himself an ironic economist and behaves iconoclastically.
Helene radiates with joy as she speaks with her children. She shares her memories and her art with them. She speaks lovingly of her uncle Paul. Perhaps she loved him more than just as an uncle. She speaks to each of her children individually and shows them the pieces she wants them to have when she dies.
But she does not know how to take care of her affairs legally, so after she dies the estate tax will be assessed at the highest possible bracket.
Helene does die. And the children have to decide what to do with her affairs. Her estate. Her effects.
The attorneys get involved. The curators. The auctioneers.
The siblings have to vote. Frederic loves the family home. He wants to keep it in the family. And much of the art. Especially the Corots. To pass it down for generations to come. But Jeremie's job will keep him in China solidly for the next five years. So the house will be of no use to him. He has three children to take care of. He needs the money. Adrienne is about to be married in New York. She sides with Jeremie. Frederic must concede.
The acting and writing are nuanced in their mature restraint. The siblings behave as one believes real people really would do. Not in superficial and petty cliches. But as people who love each other and want the best, but who must acquiesce to the practicalities of life. With compromise. And loss.
Assayas' deftly handles the objects--both as art and as heirlooms. The same pieces function as artifacts in the museum that function as daily gadgets in the home. The housekeeper keeps cut flowers in the vases. Helene writes on the desk, sits in the chair, stuffs the armoire with household clutter. Including the plastic grocery bag with the broken Degas pieces. Which have sat hidden in that drawer for at least 25 years.
The experts debate just as much as the siblings do. What to do with each item? Christie's in New York will tear out the pages of the sketchbook to maximize profit, which is not only gauche but also a loss for the nation. The sketchbook should stay in France. The Art Moderne pieces, as valuable as they are, would only sit in a warehouse and collect mold.
This film is beyond you can't take it with you. Everyone treats that as a given. It is about the memories that the objects carry, their meaning for different family members, their meaning for the public. The two that vote to sell get to take an item or two each with them, items that mean something to them, which their mother promised them. But Frederic, the one who wants to keep everything, cannot keep the one thing he wants most after the home and gardens--the Corots--because there are two of them; they cannot be divided into three; and he cannot afford to buy out the other two.
But in the end it is the grandchildren who are overlooked. As the three children make their decisions and the experts, strangers to the home, come through the house and make their decisions, monetizing things that have no emotional value for them, nobody thinks to ask the generation that would desire it the most.
The siblings have had their time on the estate. They have their memories. They are ready to move on.
But their children have only started their lives. And have had no say in the loss of their childhood.
They have a party. They might as well. The house will be gone within a few weeks. This is their last chance to take advantage of it. Their friends arrive. They play music. They dance. They light up. They drink. They swim.
And just as the viewer buys into the idea that they only want it for their immediate gratification, Sylvie informs us otherwise.
She finds her boyfriend and leads him into the woods. When the others try to follow them, she leads him more deeply. She does not want them to find them. She wants to be alone.
Sylvie looks back at the house and weeps. Her grandmother once showed her the villa and grounds and said this would all be hers one day. Sylvie believed her. She relied on it. It was her life and future. It is all she has ever known.
But now it is gone. Taken from her. Without consultation.
Nobody asked the grandchildren. The ones for whom the future of this property most matters.
Life is fleeting and full of loss. And no one can stop the vicissitudes of time. Even in families.
Especially with families.
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