Film: Home
Release date: 23rd August 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Ursula Meier
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adelaide Leroux, Madeleine Budd, Kacey Mottet Klein
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Studio: Soda
Format: DVD
Country: Switzerland/France/Belgium
Setting up home is the aspiration for most people – a place to unwind with a sense of personal security, and privacy from the outside world. But what happens when this peaceful haven is taken away after ten years of happiness?
Marthe & Michel, and their three children, live a fairly idyllic lifestyle, with their home situated next to an abandoned highway that they’ve converted into their personal playground (son Julien uses it as a bicycle race track, they play games of street hockey, whilst their property’s space is extended, using the highway to place furniture, a satellite dish and other items), and only a stone’s throw away from beautiful countryside.
However, the strength of this tightly knit family unit (they sit around the dining table to eat together, an increasingly rare occurrence today for busy and detached households – they even bath together!) is put to the test when the serenity of home is upset by the reopening of the road to which their house is in such close proximity…
Setting a light-hearted tone to the film early on (Julien is constantly fooling around, and there’s plenty of laughter), the director allows you to share in the family’s sense of wonder and intrigue, when they first become aware that the route, which will bring heavy traffic past their door, will soon be back in use. There is no official notice for the family – workers in high visibility overalls turn up, move their possessions off the road and block their point of entry with crash barriers (they do not speak, almost giving the impression of invaders from another world) – and only the father expresses any concerns initially, although he quickly falls into line (sleeping outside overnight in anticipation of the first car passing). The son stands outside and waves as they retarmac the road, using the road’s freshly painted white lines to decorate his face, whilst predicting the colour of the first passing car is turned into another family game.
It’s apparent, however, that not everything is as perfect as first impressions suggest. Early on, we see mother Marthe (Isabelle Huppert) almost forcing her reserved, younger daughter Marion (Madeleine Budd) into a bikini – a daughter whose melancholic nature and academic prowess go unnoticed or ignored, and who is told their home is “not a prison,” when she enquires why her mother hasn’t returned to work. We also see the adult daughter bathing naked (cigarette in hand) together with her brother, whilst both parents are present – and it’s in this situation that first indicators of the mother’s mental instability are revealed, as she holds back tears in distress at the thought of possibly having to move. She soon becomes dependent on the radio’s motorway updates, and is unable to even walk her children across the road.
Older daughter, Judith (Adélaïde Leroux) stays completely oblivious to changes in the status quo – initially set-up as the odd family member, you soon realise she is the most sane and stable person in this household. She drowns out events with loud thrash metal, and provides the film’s best comic moments – even with a constant stream of traffic passing by, she continues to sunbathe in next to nothing, aggressively gesturing at horn-tooting lorry drivers, and attracting a sizeable crowd when an accident causes the traffic to grind to a halt.
Whilst the father does his best to hold it together (though taking his children through drainage culvert, which passes beneath the road, when they are unable to navigate through heavy traffic almost proves too much), and appease the sleep deprived and increasingly worrying (at one point smothering her husband with a pillow) mother (from ear plugs to blocking up windows and doors with breeze blocks), the young daughter’s darker personality begins to infiltrate the son’s psyche. Soon paranoia levels are out of control – Julien wetting his bed and checking his “leading poisoning mark” in the early hours, his fears fed by a sister who covers herself head to toe (and uses a gas mask), checking the grass for toxins, and listing various illnesses they will soon suffer from due to the increased levels of pollution (including anorexia!).
With the family unable to cope with disruption to their previously exclusive lifestyle (Marthe can’t even cope with the thought of drivers sighting her underwear on the washing line), the slight uneasiness to the film’s early joviality takes a stranglehold, from darkly comic to outright eerie (the silence as the family creep around their freshly blocked up house) and upsetting – when the father decides enough’s enough, his attempts to remove his wife requires physical force in dramatic scenes that see her clawing to grab hold of furniture and fittings, and screaming, “leave if you want!” and “take them away!” (in reference to their children).
Director Ursula Meier maximizes the role of sound as the musical score alters with the change in the film’s mood. Early on Michel (the father, played by Olivier Gourmet) arrives home from work to upbeat jazz, and rather pleased with his lot, he taps his fingers across the dashboard. However, by the end we are coming to terms with recent events to the haunting voice of Nina Simone – the use of silence is also used effectively, breaking from the noise of the family/traffic to highlight the lost, dazed state the mother finds herself in.
The film’s evolution threatens a more harrowing conclusion, and arguably cops out. Viewers may feel the film’s abstract ending, open to personal summation, may suit, but others will cry out for the director to finish the job - and give them the ultimate payoff!
Though the director takes a fair few liberties with his artistic freedom in setting his one up, he never forgoes realism in its execution, whilst he cleverly handles your uncertainty till the very end. DH
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