REVIEW: DVD Release: Boxes

Film: Boxes
Release date: 1st November 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 95 mins
Director: Jane Birkin
Starring: Geraldine Chaplin, Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Natacha Régnier, Lou Doillon
Genre: Drama/Fantasy
Studio: Bluebell
Format: DVD
Country: France

When Jane Birkin turned her hand to direction, lovers of Anglo/Franco cinema were to be treated with a strong female voice whose experiences of working with such great directors as Michelangelo Antonioni, Richard Lester and Alain Resnais would certainly give a rise to a new chapter in an eclectic career.

Boxes, Birkin’s debut with a narrative driven feature, tells the story of Anna (played by Birkin herself), a lady in her fifties, who, while unpacking in her new seaside residence in picturesque Brittany, is visited by moments and people from her past.

Whether it is her three ex-husbands, her three children, or her deceased father, Anna is forced to deal with the emotion scars, tragedies and triumphs of her life in a physically sparse yet psychologically dense environment…


For Birkin and Birkinites alike, a film about memory and the overlapping presence of past and present is not a new subject matter. Fans of the made for TV French title Oh Pardon! You Were Sleeping… will be familiar with the notion of individuals dealing with memory and tragedy in a heavily theatrical environment. Birkin’s performance is, like her direction, understated, though she is never better or more complicated a character than when she is interacting with her daughters.

Adele Exarchopoulos as Lilli gives an incredibly mature performance for one so young. At times a playful child, on other occasions carrying the wisdom of her older self that Anna is clearly projecting on to the child from her foreknowledge – it allows for a fascinating back and forth between mother and daughter on several occasions.

The complicated and sexual relationship between Max (Maurice Benicho) and his daughter Camille (Lou Doillon) gives the film, which could easily drift off into the realm of art house pulp, a degree of gravitas that is deeply needed, and is carried across by both actors so skilfully that it manages to leave the audience pondering the unasked questions as to the level of intimacy between father and child.

The casting of Anna’s husbands from various stages in her life is wonderfully eclectic, with Benicho, John Hurt and Tcheky Karyo all pitching in with excellent yet short performances, but also highlighting what is surely a diverse and complicated woman (in Anna).

Cinematically, there are some issues with the film. At points, the lack of camera movement only serves to highlight the fact that this is all staged, which perhaps was Birkin’s intention, but in cinema it creates issues between film and audience. At other times, most notably when Anna’s parents are talking in the garden, the cinematography has adopted an extremely low angle, creating an almost expressionistically Weimar shot, though without the psychological devices to drive the idea home. This is momentary, though, and before long the cinematography is back to being made up of master and two shots, which, along with the almost nonexistent score, does little to alter the idea that perhaps Boxes would translate better on a Parisian stage than a cinema screen. The deep focus master shot of Karyo, Hurt and Birkin is something that should be savoured by cinema audiences, as all three actors have such rich oeuvres, yet it is almost too understated and stagey. Several scenes through the film scream Beckett, Endgame especially, which is an example of the director’s theatrical background but highlights this is neither Beckett nor up to the standard of Beckett.

The most interesting avenue in Boxes is one that is key to the film, yet almost disregarded. Notions of memory and its reliability are littered throughout cinema, so it was probably preferable not to linger on it for too long, however, the fact that Hurt’s character goes without a name, and is initially referred to as a ‘Dick’ and is forced to break through Anna’s subconscious to make her to acknowledge that it was her who oversimplified their relationship in order to justify walking away with their child, is extremely interesting. Ideas of suppression would certainly allow you to wonder if perhaps Anna knew, at least on one level, about the unsavoury relationship between her ex-husband and her daughter, or that her grandmother, a constant source of entertainment in the film, is so deep in the final stages of dementia because that’s how Anna has chosen to remember her - all notions that Antonioni would have been highly interested in.


Ultimately Boxes is a stage play that has been recorded for the cinema audience, and though, at times, it is extremely thought provoking and rich, with excellent actors and narrative, it ultimately has a level of theatrically that sits uncomfortable with the cinematic audience. A theatrically that has long since been left behind for the advancement of cinema as its own autonomous art form. There are many moments in the film that should provoke excitement, warmth and rage, but the misfiring format of the film ultimately leaves the narrative key points falling flat. DL