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****1/2

Have you ever found yourself wondering about those people who live right alongside the freeway - the anonymous folk whose lives we peer into for mere nano-seconds as we hurtle our way past their apartments and houses en route to our destinations? Well, the artists who made "Home" certainly have, and the answer they've come up with makes for a fascinating, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience that, even more than most movies, has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

The family in "Home" leads a relatively carefree and decidedly unconventional lifestyle. Their house stands adjacent to an abandoned freeway, which they use as their own private recreation area. They also view bath time as a communal experience (this being Switzerland and all).

All is going reasonably well (despite some mild familial tension here and there), until one day and without any warning, the roadway is reopened to traffic, shattering the family's once-peaceful existence with the sounds of whooshing cars and honking horns, the penetrating odor of exhaust fumes and fossil fuels, a diminution of privacy (especially during traffic jams), and a nonstop assault on the senses. Even getting to the other side of the road - to school or to work - becomes a daily, death-defying game of chicken with speeding vehicles whose drivers have no intention of slowing down for bothersome and unwelcome pedestrians.

This tremendously odd little film is obviously intended as a parable about the oppressiveness and chaos of modern life as it encroaches ever more forcefully onto the peace and tranquility of a rural existence. The family members become increasingly ill-tempered, paranoid, neurotic, even violent as the outside world inexorably presses its way into their once-placid lives.

But far more than the characters and themes, it is the astonishing mise-en-scene that ultimately works its way into the viewer's psyche and that makes it hard not only to avert one's eyes during the course of the movie but to get back to one's own "reality" once it's over. Director Ursula Meier's work here is reminiscent of Luis Bunuel in one of his less playful moods, as she focuses on a group of everyday people trapped in a surrealistic nightmare from which they are unable to awaken. It is definitely a case in which the scene becomes an integral reflection of the psychological states of the characters.

Isabelle Hupert and Olivier Gourmet play the parents; Madeleine Budd and Kacey Mottet Klein their two children; and Adelaide Leroux, Gourmet's nubile daughter from a previous marriage who spends most of her time sunbathing for the highly appreciative motorists and truckers who keep whizzing on by.

Unique and unforgettable.

A family's isolated idyllic existence along the edge of an abandoned highway is interrupted when it is unexpectedly opened for traffic. Ursula Meier, in a potent directorial debut, depicts from the outset and directly without any need for explanation the effortless and carefree life of a family whose relative isolation enables them to live as they will, to escape from the expectations and judgments of others and live simply. We are gradually made aware that their stability as a family depends upon this separation from the outside world. This is especially true of the mother, played fearlessly by Isabelle Huppert, whose ability to manage the home and to cope with her situation begins to break down as the world intrudes. There are hints that this is not the first time, and that they had come to this place in hopes of achieving some kind of stability.

The cinematography is rich, the performances uniformly strong, the story manages to work both as drama and as allegory. I loved the soundtrack, and Nina Simone over the credits was a perfect ending. I just finished seeing it the second time and it managed to both fascinate and frighten. At some level this is, effectively, a highly restrained ecological horror film, where the monster is just the world encroaching in, in the form of increasing traffic and incessant noise and pollution, and that triggers desperation. In many ways the film reminded me of a more subtle and smaller scale version of something like The Mosquito Coast, and it works with the same issues: the idea of the need to escape into a carefree wilderness, the idea that a man should somehow protect his family at all costs from the risks of the outside world.

On the one hand, the drama that accompanies the gradual breakdown of their comfortable rituals is fascinating to watch. Hints that the highway will be opening are met at first with disbelief, then curiosity and eventually despair. On the other hand, as it develops there is a clear sense that something more is at stake here than the merely personal lives of this family. There are hints of something more than just a realistic story of familial breakdown, and I couldn't help but think of Ballard's Concrete Island and of Buñuel's The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, or even the much darker, Dogtooth. After all the life they manage to lead is a kind of bourgeois fantasy - with a rugged male father figure who goes off into the unknown every day in order to bring back the supplies that will sustain his family, and of the beautiful wife who is keeper of the home, who greets each child as they come home from school with a ready-made snack, of the carefree innocence with which siblings bathe together nude - it is this fantasy they have managed to achieve apart, that inevitably won't last, but it's fascinating how far they are willing to go in an effort to maintain it. The final shot, that depicts what is left of their efforts, from the perspective of an intrigued traveler on the highway, manages to say a great deal about general carelessness regarding the impact of the endless suburbanization of everyday life. From the perspective of "progress" it's a good thing that everyone is connected and nobody can ever be away from the gaze of their neighbors. I'm not so sure that's a good thing, but as the film makes clear it's not an easy thing to escape.

There is some sort of moral tale at the heart here about a weird, but happy, family living absurdly close to the end of a rural highway in France. Suddenly, the road is extended and reopened, and the family is surrounded by a mounting number of noisy speeding vehicles. The commentary is about man's destruction of natural beauty and quiet, I suppose. The radio reports of the freeway's opening are funny as the announcer absurdly extols the virtues of the new highway. The teenage daughter appears to do nothing but lay around and suntan all day while listening to heavy metal music. What the father does for a living is hard to say. The mother seems to be a bit bonkers and cannot bear the idea of ever leaving their rather squalid house, filled with dirty clutter. I half expected someone to get run over by a speeding car any minute. You won't come away with much from this little film.

I was browsing for a good movie in the foreign movie section of my local public library here in Blue Ash, and when I noticed this one, I had to pick it up right away, if not else since this stars Isabelle Huppert, a legend in French cinema.

"Home" (98 min.; originally released in 2008) brings the tale of a family of five living in splendid isolation in a house along an incomplete highway. We learn they have lived like this for 10 years, and quite happily and care-free. The opening scene of the family playing street-hockey is a perfect introduction. Alas, disaster strikes when the news comes that the highway is being completed and opened. What initially is a trickle of cars becomes a wave of cars and trucks, and the family's entire existence as they knew it comes to an end. Isabelle Huppert's character does not want to move at any cost, and to battle the never-ending noice, the family shuts all windows and doors and layers the house with tons of sound-proofing material. This time, the resulting isolation is not so splendid.

"Home" is the original title of the movie, which is a bit curious since this is a French-speaking movie. That aside, this was Switzerland's official entry for the Foreign Movie Oscars for 2008 and it's easy to see why. This is a dark movie, for sure, but one that is definitely worth seeking out. Isabelle Huppert, 56 years old when this was filmed, looks as beautiful as ever, and her acting skills are tops. But the other family members are quite good as well, in particular the little boy. Highly recommended!

Home Ursula Meier, Switzerland/France/Belgium 2009.

Euro trailer trash (OK,not literally) Marthe, Michael and 3 kids live by an uncompleted highway. Marthe is kind of cuckoo, unable to think of leaving, Michael goes off to a real job, albeit one where his name is embroidered on the shirt, older daughter Judith spends her time sunbathing to heavy metal soundtrack, younger children Marion and Julien commute to school, It's a ramshackle existence, but not without gaiety.

Their life is upset when the road is completed, walling off their enclave and subjecting them to increasing noise and pollution. They cope for a while, but things reach a climax, and Michael closes up the house with cinder blocks to the point of suffocation. I won't give away the denouement, although other reviewers already have, but it seems strained and "symbolic".

And that's my problem with this film. I like the offbeat, the film that's a bit difficult to get into. But this one tries too hard to go from director Meier's wondering about the lives of people in remote houses by the highway to something Significant, and comes across, to me, as simply pretentious rather than insightful.

I always know I'm going to enjoy a dark moment if Isabelle Huppert is in a film; one of my favorite French actresses; many Americans may only have seen her in "I love Huckabees"...but I digress. "Home" wrestles with just that idea, what is a home? Is it a place, is it a feeling, is it the people you live with, and if all those things change, then what exactly is it? Home takes place in a french countryside, bordering a 10 year abandoned interstate that never opened. The family has adapted and extend its boundary line incorporating it into part of their kingdom; they play hockey on it, watch TV on it, barbecue on it, sun on it, and even have their satellite dish attached to its guard rail. But is this family prepared psychologically to maintain this idea of home, when progress drives through the front yard or, will they be imprisoned in a castle of their own choosing?

Home is not where the heart is.....but where absurdity lives. This French family is living right smack off a dead road, their lives are strewn on the road, couch, wading pool, toys, etc. Until, the road is opened to a highway and they choose to adapt to the highway noise.

Marthe, the wife has previously been a drug addict and while vulnerable, does not want to move once the absurdity of living on the major highway becomes what some might say, unbearable. The family consists of Marthe, her husband, three children, two teenage girls and a boy about 8 years.

You do not see anything other than the highway and the home, giving the viewer first hand look at the closeness and confines of living on the highway. But Marthe refuses to move, her husband takes drastic measures to ward off the noise, one daughter is paranoid believing they will all die with the contamination and the other daughter drifts away too. The madness slowly creeps up.

There is 30 minute interview with Director Ursula Meier. The idea of someone living on the highway was based on her knowledge of that situation. The details are information, being the building of a highway from a road not in France, the noise level studied, the addition of 300 cars, etc.

Now, here is America, we are not accustomed to viewing children in the nude, and moreso, children in the nude with their parents. An 8-yr old boy in the bathtub with his mother? A father and son in the bathroom while his teen daughter sits in the bathtub, in full view? Don't let the young ones walk in on this movie....Rizzo

The easy-going lives of a family living right next to an unused motorway are thrown into turmoil when it unexpectedly opens. Their efforts to cope with the sudden noise, intrusion, and pollution become increasingly desperate as, during the heat of summer, they descend into madness. There are definite Ballardian overtones in Meier's touching movie. It's a captivating examination of how modern existence can tip even the most equanimous over the edge given the right circumstances. The performances are uniformly excellent and the script avoids melodrama, keeping its feet firmly on the ground even when the family falls apart. Captivating, thoughtful and ultimately redemptive.

Am a huge fan of Isabelle Huppert,I loved the film, Was mesemerised throughout the film,Casting in my opinion was excellent,Movie ends a tad strangely.I.H;clothed throughout;I wished the movie was another two hours longer. THANX.

I totally agree with the one-star review written by Drollere. Additionally, I take offense at child nudity in films like this, as it's exploitation. A teen girl in the bathtub with her 10 year old brother, playing around while the rest of the family mills in and out of the room was just too strange. This entire film is nothing but strange. Not in a good way.