Customer Reviews

A Christmas Tale

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This one is not for everyone. Most people will probably not only have trouble with its length, but its style, as well. Both as wild as it is imaginative, Christmas Tale is like a post-modern jazz score, mixing elements from a variety of cinematic styles that are jarring (at times), but always interesting to behold. As long as the film is, it always keeps moving and changing before our very eyes. What makes its odd stylistic combinations work is the compelling depths of its explorations into family and the bonds the unite, or divide us. Like and The Royal Tennenbaums, with a nouvelle vague twist, the film is not only full of odd combinations of image and music, but seems to jump from one film to another from scene to scene, as if each character or emotional quality (from light comedy to serious drama) were each receiving its own rendering. At times, the characters turn and speak directly to the camera. The filmmaker also intercedes by providing chapter headings and keyhole views, but, somehow, what could have become a cacophony of chaos, turns into a wonderment of cinema that any real cinephile will be amazed to behold and want to experience again....

French director Arnaud Desplechin's film works as one of the best mult-layered movies of the genre, which in many respects takes its conventions and turns them on their head. Not your feel good, holiday coming home movie but one which inverts and mischievously perverts viewer expectations and instead dares to substitute real people for the usual suspects. The first rate acting (the legendary Catherine Deneuve and the not as well known but no less talented Desplechin actors Mathieu Almaric and Emmanuelle Devos) takes a conventional genre situation - mother (Denueve) suffers from cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant - and explores the generational conflicts that afflict this family and provocatively and evocatively deals with the issues of mother love; forgiveness; sibling rivalry; grief for thwarted dreams and life changing losses, and even fidelity itself. For film lovers who enjoy characters in unconventional situations, this film will continue to reward upon future viewings. Those requiring conventional Hollywood plotting and endings should probably look elsewhere. I would add that the director is one of the best working today. One of the best films of 2008.

[4.5 stars] It may be a mistake to call this a "dysfunctional family Christmas movie." The individuals of the Vuillard family have, in fact, all submitted themselves to the precise roles that will allow the family to function. And that is the real problem. Each has to contort himself, at times almost beyond human recognition, in order for things to make a certain sort of sense. There is distance in how they address each other: no "maman", no "papa", just first names all around. The system that allows this family to function even includes "Anatole," an imaginary wolf that lives in the basement. It is a well-honed system.

The mother, father, three siblings, assorted cousins and spouses that populate this family tree all have a psychic tie to a withered root, namely the firstborn son, Joseph, who died of a rare cancer at age six. Elizabeth, the oldest surviving child, complains of a grief that has no apparent source. She is the type of person we all have met at some time in our lives, someone whose main grievance is that she feels herself to be inadequately aggrieved. She completely surrenders herself to the false martyrdom of self-pity, willingly clutching each grudge to her bosom, even as it drains her of life and poisons everyone around her.

We see how Henri, the middle child, becomes Elizabeth's chosen victim, and Ivan, the youngest, tries to mollify everyone. All of this has a decidedly theatrical effect. The family members are depicted as performers just as much as the Ekdahls are in Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection, with whose first 90 minutes A CHRISTMAS TALE bears more than a passing resemblance. This masquerade also has, as a point of reference, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, both in the brief appearance of the 1935 movie on the TV screen, and in Mendelssohn's incidental music, playing on the soundtrack.

The directorial style of this film is something all its own. It uses film grammar from every era of cinema history, throwing it all into one big pot. Somehow it works. I kept thinking of Harold Bloom's assertion that "strangeness" is the quality that distinguishes lasting works of art. There is the strangeness that so assimilates us that we no longer see it as strange: Shakespeare, Griffith, Hitchcock. And there is the strangeness that cannot be assimilated: Sterne, Beckett, Buñuel.

A CHRISTMAS TALE possesses the latter variety of strangeness. You're not going to pull this out and watch it every holiday season. But you may choose to see it repeatedly for the fascinating, dreamlike dance in the interaction of its characters.

A dysfunctional French family gathers for Christmas for several days of confrontation and angst.

The fine cast kept me engaged for the film's lengthy running time, but in the end I was left unsatisfied. Many of the conflicts between family members were difficult for me to understand, their reactions either overblown or mysterious without the benefit of a revelation to account for it. I was also put off by the chilly relations between family members and some of the gimmicks of director Arnaud Desplechin. I suppose cinema is more an emotional medium for me than a cerebral one; I appreciate a film that gives me something to contemplate, but it must hook me by engaging my emotions first, and this film didn't do that.

ALERT- there are spoilers here:

This film is maddening in that the characters on many levels are completely unsympathetic...and yet they manage to draw you in and elicit empathy.

The acting is superb. I loved the music and the jerky cinematic quality- making it look like a home movie at times. In this respect, the cinematography reminds me a bit of Cousin Cousine and the shots of the family in that film at the party.

The story was multi-layered. Many times I expected some violent incident but I was immensely relieved that the film never resorted to this type of a device.

Questions are posed, mysteries are revealed and the questions remain unanswered at the end of the movie. Nothing is neat. All is messy and unresolved in away that is true to life. The relationshsip between Junon and her husband is unusually tender and believable. I loved the ending with its reference to The Tempest.

Wonderfully acted dark tale of family strife and the different dynamics that bring joy and pain. Catherine Deneuve is stellar in her performance as the matriarch of this dysfunctional group.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film

A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël) is a film about a family in suburban France. When one person develops a bone marrow disease and needs a transplant, an estranged member of the family is the only compatible donor. The film takes place around Christmas hence the title.

The film was only released about a year ago and is the only foreign language film I recall that Criterion has released so soon after its production.

I found the film to be interesting and shows that in this day and age that sadly, it sometimes takes a life or death crisis for members of a family to reconcile.

The release is on two discs with the film on disc one and the following special features on disc two. A documentary on the film's production with interviews with cast and crew, theatrical trailers and a documentary about the film's director Arnaud Desplechin selling his family home.

This film is always entertaining and inventive, though its pacing does provide a few pauses in action to let you check in with yourself about what you've just seen. The variety of creative devices put successfully into play in here hint at genius (Literature, Music: Classical, Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Art & Animation). The acting performances are natural and the characters heartbreaking. Their flaws are at once towering and human. I'm a student of film and believe in its potential to teach us something of who we are as we bump into each other in this life. This one teaches from start to finish in some unexpected ways.

It's a visual encounter of lyrical dimensions. And in typical French fashion, its romantic and heartbreaking, yet unsentimental. Admitting my bias for Holiday films, and their ability display family dysfunction not disposed to constructive resolution, this is a film that goes beyond the neurosis and reveals something surprising--plain old good will in some seemingly irredeemable people. Our families often mess us up, but they also have the power to help us heal and bloom from, despite, and because of their influences. This film recognizes that, and makes not excuses for it. This film is on my top 25 films list.

A Christmas Tale has become one of our favorite holiday movies. Stricken with a rare form of bone cancer, a family matriarch (Catherine Deneuve, still ravishing at 68) must turn to to her estranged black sheep son (Quantum of Solace's Mathieu Amalric) for help during a Christmas reunion. Superb study of family dynamics, one memorable scene after another, and fine performances by all, especially from Jean-Paul Roussillon as the father of the family. Mid-way through, you suddenly realize that you've become a part of the Vuillard family, and that you care about them, foibles and all.

A Christmas Tale
Think the opposite of everything the movie Dan in Real Life stands for with one exception, which is already saying the movie is amazing. A family gathers during Christmas time, the matriarch awaits her families bone marrow tests to see if they are a match so she can live, and the bad boy brother who has been excommunicated returns. As cliché as that sounds the only thing cliché is the title and to refer back to Dan in Real Life the only thing real is the real in that title. In keeping it real the film's complex characters have role ambiguity and viewers are left with an open ending. The only thing in Tale wrapped with a bow are the presents.
Oh, however, Dan in real life had the beautiful Juliette Binoche (also in this years amazing Flight of the Red Balloon) and Tale also has many beautiful and talented French actresses that could make any act seem classy. The cinematography is also attractive as is the score.

Speaking about the score mp3 download of the soundtrack from this very site is over three times cheaper.
A christmas tale was one of the best films of 2008 and this one of the best soundtracks.
Most of the songs are classical style but track 20 is a french/rap track.



Criterion DVD features (from crterion . com)
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Arnaud Desplechin
L'aimée, Desplechin's 2007 documentary about the selling of his family home
New documentary featuring interviews with Desplechin and actors Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve
Original theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Lopate