JE RENTRE À LA
MAISON
I'M GOING HOME |
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Director:
Manoel de Oliveira
Cast: Gilbert Valence: Michel Piccoli
Marguerite: Catherine Deneuve
John Crawford: John Malkovich
George: Antoine Chappey
Marie: Leonor Silveira
Awards: Critics Prize, Sao Paulo International Film Festival; nominated
for Golden Palm, Cannes Film Festival (2001).
Running time: 90 minutes
Production: France/Portugal, 2001
Rating: Not rated (general audience)
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
Language: French
Distributor: Milestone Film & Video
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"One
reason de Oliveira may have chosen to tell this sort of story is that
part of what must be difficult about being old is living with the
loss of so many friends and relatives. Yet this film, without a trace
of sentimentality or false elation, is the lightest depiction of grief
and the loneliness of growing old one could imagine." Jonathan
Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader. |
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While playing
the aging monarch in Ionesco’s absurdist drama, Exit the King,
the famous and respected actor Gilbert Valence goes backstage to
learn that his wife, daughter and son-in-law have just been killed
in a car accident. Left to take care of his young grandson, Valence
quietly continues with his life. He frequents his favorite café,
reads Libération, strolls through the streets of Paris and,
on a whim, buys a pair of expensive leather shoes, only later to
be mugged and have them stolen. When asked at short notice to play
Buck Mulligan in a film adaptation of Joyce’s Ulysses,
Valence, though not fluent in English, accepts. Once on set, struggling
with the difficult dialogue and sporting makeup and an absurd wig
to make him look younger, the veteran actor looks to be in danger
of losing his dignity. A quiet and lucid meditation on aging, death
and bereavement, the film is neither sentimental nor tragic, but
rather a celebration of the small pleasures in life. Nonagenarian
Portuguese master de Oliveira pares away all but the essentials,
relying on silence, long takes and visual humor to reveal depths
in what might initially appear to be a slight story. Piccoli, however,
turns in a subtle, utterly captivating performance as a man facing
his mortality with fortitude and poise.
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| PHOTO Milestone
Film & Video |
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