Tag: Olivier Assayas

CIFF Review: Something in the Air

“Something in the Air” is a rousing coming of age drama set in a time when personal rebellion took a back seat to all the political upheaval in the world. It’s 1971 in France, and for these kids its politics meets teen angst. It’s about finding yourself and what you believe in as the global stage itself, not just the lunch room table, asks you to pick a side.

Gilles (Clement Metayer) is a young outspoken political activist selling underground newspapers by day and vandalizing the high school by night. He and his classmates have honest lives and talents, but perhaps because of social pressure, they’ve wrapped themselves in these political conspiracies.

He begins exploring books and poetry, and yet he has beatniks telling him to watch what he reads. He is a talented and growing artist, and yet he has American hippies his age spewing philosophy about how he needs to find convictions. He starts a lovely relationship with the equally adventurous Christine (Lola Creton), but she thinks he’s more in love with his ex, Laure (Carole Combes), another free-spirit and drug addict who has more “freedom.”

What we see in Gilles is that his art, his love and his interests are all more noble and sincere than his politics. Without bending to melodrama or genre clichés, “Something in the Air” is a film about how this kid juggles all these conflicting ideas, finds his passion and maintains his voice.

It’s masterfully directed by Olivier Assayas (“Summer Hours,” “Carlos”), who has a way of capturing the energy, sexuality and mystique of the time period without dipping into a pop culture playbook. Usually he does it in long takes that don’t reveal themselves thanks to the film’s colorful and animated aesthetic. One of the best scenes takes place inside a rambunctious villa house party, with Assayas surveying elegantly. The motion of the camera and the activity on screen are on fire, and before long the scene quite literally ignites. It’s just one of the film’s many beautiful moments out of time.

3 ½ stars

Summer Hours

When you walk through a museum and see an ornate piece of furniture on display, you read the caption and walk past, forgetting about it as soon as it leaves your sight.

But consider that this desk, vase or armoire used to sit in someone’s home. It used to hold treasured belongings and tie up the room. It used to mean something to someone.

“Summer Hours” finds meaning in our possessions. It’s a film about a family attempting to split up their mother’s belongings after her passing, and it gets at the subtle nostalgia, plans, bonds and emotions that exist in every family.

This particular French family has gathered for their mother Helene’s (Edith Scob) 75th birthday. They talk quaintly and the children play, but Helene needs to talk business. She pulls aside her son Frederic (Charles Berling) to discuss what to do with her belongings after she dies. This is never an easy conversation topic.

The big problem is that Helene is a wealthy art collector living in a massive French villa. She had a deep friendship with a famous French artist long ago and acquired many of his paintings and valuables. Frederic is the only one still living in France and the only one equipped to truly maintain the house after she’s gone.

But how do you get someone to care about an older person’s relics? Frederic has enough problems with his own kids, and now he has to look over the estate of a French artist he hardly knew. Despite her massive collection, the saddest truth is that Helene can’t give away everything. “There are a lot of things that will leave with me,” she says. “There are stories no one is interested in and things no one wants.”

Shortly after, Helene dies, and the family gathers again to manage her estate. Jeremie (Jeremie Renier) is starting a new job in China and is short for cash, and Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) is getting married to her American boyfriend and living abroad. Neither has the time or money to keep the house or many of the treasured belongings, and Frederic can’t buy them out. Most of it must be sold or donated to museums that are interested.

It’s a fight between nostalgia and necessity, between past and present desires. Everyone has their own plans, and in such closely knit families, it can be difficult and awkward when they don’t meet.

Director and writer Olivier Assayas finds that awkward tension in everything that is not said. In one pivotal scene, Adrienne admits she’s getting married, but the news lands like a dull thud because it casts the deciding vote in selling the house. We can sense so easily that Frederic is biting his tongue out of respect, but at the same time he has to show his enthusiastic, happy support.

“Summer Hours” has an elegant, episodic quality to it that encourages these actors and stifles any melodrama. It finds authenticity and meaning in even the most simple of moments.

3 stars