With the sound of the harp and cello, the children ran outside the old house in the French countryside, and in the courtyard was a happy time for adults to gather together to raise a glass and chat. Director Assayas started the film journey with such a relaxed and calm gaze.
The opening song of the film Summertime, Loftus Jones, has the style of Irish traditional and European classical music, and the music itself is more long under the deliberately slow change of the player's key. The beautiful music not only adds a lot to the movie emotionally, but also implies that the audience's "summer time" is long and beautiful through the special tonality of the music, and at the same time hides sadness.
Commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay, the most famous museum in France, the original plan for the film was to describe how folk art was transferred to the museum. Therefore, Assayas abandoned the traditional dramatic narrative, using the whereabouts of the artwork as a clue, and unfolded the film in an almost observational documentary style. To celebrate the 75th birthday of mother Helena, the three brothers and sisters who have not seen each other for a long time brought their family back to their hometown. As the eldest son, Frédéric was called to the side by his mother to entrust his funeral, but he was unwilling to face it. However, the mother died a few months later, and the three brothers and sisters had to face the issue of inheritance after the funeral. At this time, Frédéric, who was the only one living in France, did not realize that his younger brother Jérémie, who moved his family to China, and his younger sister Adrienne, who had lived in New York for many years, had no attachment to their hometown. Selling the production became the choice that the eldest son Frédéric had to accept. In the end, in order to avoid the high inheritance tax, the three brothers and sisters donated part of their collections to the Musée d'Orsay, a close friend. After that, Frédéric could only see his childhood memories through the railings at the Musée d'Orsay with the tourists who were watching the flowers.
A family property story that should have been written as a dog-blooded series, but fortunately director Assayas did not choose to do so. This is also the most moving point of summer time. Of course, if the contradiction in the distribution of inheritance or the incestuous love history of the mother is used as the selling point of the drama, selling it to the audience is most in line with the current movie viewing culture of entertainment to death. But Assayas is a "rebellious" director. Dilute the conflict, weaken the plot, and the price of the director's adventure in exchange will be a bit "boring". Stupid because his films are not prepared for tourists who are just walking around. The risk is that all this is through the seemingly light-hearted "chat" of everyone, so that the audience can see the dark tide in the process of family change. The dark tide refers to the family's grievances and grievances under the table. For example, Frédéric felt that he had never been affirmed by his mother, and he complained to his wife behind his back that his mother insisted on letting him study business management but did not care about his achievements, but he was the most yearning in his heart. His mother's life, so his mother's indifference made him often feel inferior to what he did. And guilt is the biggest pain in his heart when he faces the disintegration of his family. Another example is that the youngest daughter Adrienne chose a path that seemed completely different from her mother, and went to New York to become a designer, but she was the most similar to her mother among the three. The more similar they are, the more they hate each other, so Adrienne can't stand her mother smiling and complaining about herself, while her mother is secretly dissatisfied with Adrienne's wayward self. The unique truth in movies comes from the details of this kind of life. The more delicate, the more you can see the past and present of the family. The love and hatred of mother and daughter in their entire lives are often condensed into one action, one look, allowing the audience to see the interior of the home through this "window". To this end, actors such as Juliette Binoche not only gave superb and unmarked performances, but also showed a high degree of understanding and recognition of the characters' hearts.
For the audience, we were placed in the "eye of the storm" by Assayas to silently observe a family. What is the meaning of all this? I think a family is not only a microcosm of a society, but also a witness of an era. Assayas, who has experienced the turbulent times in France, has also witnessed the rise of the French New Wave and the large-scale invasion of American culture. More importantly, after the millennium, the values of the new generation have changed. Change will inevitably bring pain. Assayas, who is in the cracks of the times, uses his dead mother as the emotional foundation to open up the softest memory in his heart to the audience. It is watching and inviting us to think about family and emotions, art and life. relationship between.
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