L'Heure d'été

A pleasant setting with nice, affluent people who deal with existential issues and talk about ordinary things, behind which something more complicated is concealed. The beginning is very Rohmer-esque, and the film becomes more sorrowful from there. No frantic action is set off by the inherited property. For laymen, it is old junk; for professionals, artifacts; for the characters, tangible pieces of the past. Assayas impartially observes the “path” of this inheritance, leaving it up to us to decide what we think about the three siblings (I thought the three telephones were a mean gift, as if to ensure that Helene would contentedly stay where she was) and relying on emotions to arise depending on our own memories. If you don’t have anything to remember, that’s a problem, but I was properly touched by the ending, when even a representative of the younger generation realises what she is losing along with the old house. 80% (22.11.2011)