Product Details

• Actors: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier, Edith Scob, Dominique Reymond
• Directors: Olivier Assayas
• Writers: Olivier Assayas
• Producers: Charles Gillibert, Claire Dornoy, Marin Karmitz, Nathanaël Karmitz
• Format: Color, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: April 20, 2010
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0035ECHPO
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,146 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Summer Hours (The Criterion Collection)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For a film about objects, Summer Hours presents a surprisingly affecting scenario. Then again, Olivier Assayas has never taken the easy road to catharsis. It's no spoiler to note that Hélène Berthier (Edith Scob) passes away shortly after her 75th birthday party, at which she tells her three children, Frédéric (Charles Berling), Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), that they're free to do whatever they want with her belongings The niece of a renowned painter, Hélène leaves behind a collection of art deco furnishings and precious objets d'art, including Musée d'Orsay-loaned pieces by Degas and Redon. Were he a different kind of director, the superficial would lock horns with the righteous, but these characters aren't quite so simplistic. Frédéric, who resides in France with his wife and teenage daughter, wishes to leave everything as it is, but Adrienne lives in New York with her boyfriend (played by Clint Eastwood's son, Kyle) and Jérémie lives in China with his wife and young children, so they hatch a plan that meets everyone's unique needs. Largely devoid of music, once an Assayas signature, the movie ends with a raucous house party that recalls his 1994 feature Cold Water, and Berling (Les Destinées, Demonlover) continues to do some of his finest work for the filmmaker, anchoring this deceptively rich picture with his subtle performance. Summer Hours marks a return to form for Assayas (after the stylishly inert Boarding Gate) and offers a rewarding new twist on the family melodrama. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Widely hailed by critics as 2009’s best film, Summer Hours is the great contemporary French filmmaker Olivier Assayas’s most personal film to date. Three siblings, played by Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier, must decide what to do with the country estate and objects they’ve inherited from their mother. From this simple story, Assayas creates a nuanced, exquisitely made drama about the material of globalized modern living. Naturalistic and unsentimental yet suffused with genuine warmth, this is that rare film that pays respect to family by treating it with honesty.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Remembrance of things past . . . May 17, 2009

By Ronald Scheer

Format:DVD

This elegiac French film concerns the passing of one generation to the next in a family of three siblings left with the complicated inheritance of a mother whose country house is filled with the memories and belongings of a great-uncle who was a well-known artist. Richly detailed, Proustian evocation of a moment in time where past and present meet - before time moves on.

This is a multi-layered film, interested in the interconnections between overlapping lives, while taking on many themes from the meaning that possessions assume in our lives to the responsibilities we owe to the past and to the memories and wishes of our forebears. It raises issues of lasting vs ephemeral values, esthetic vs practical, monetary vs sentimental, materialism vs intangibles like loyalty, respect, passion, tradition. It tantalizes with the expectation of family secrets that are never quite revealed. It luxuriates in the languor of French countryside at the height of summer.

While the dilemma - what to do with the the art collection of a dead artist - suggests a kind of high-culture perspective on the subject, the film keeps bringing us down to earth with its interest in the conflicts that might exist between any family members left to sort out the belongings of a dead parent, while needing to get on with their lives. The closing scenes are a brilliant coda to the way the dilemma is resolved - the central characters are left behind as we follow the next generation - teenagers invading the abandoned country house for a last weekend of partying, their attention focused completely on the present and the beckoning future.

This is a wise and thoughtful film especially for older adults. See it with someone who has lived a good deal of life, and the two of you will have much to reflect on and comment about.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This film is about all of Life April 25, 2010

By J. Preston TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase

I agree with most of what the other reviewers have said about this film. This is a wonderful film - full of insights about humanity, family, Life and Love.

However, I think this film has much more to offer than just insights about memories, or generations, or possessions . . . .

It is the second in a series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, after The Flight of the Red Balloon. Flight Of The Red Balloon [DVD] WS, Juliette Binoche

This film is a "map" of modern human consciousness.

It starts with a French family gathering in the provences at their family home. The aging mother, now 75 years old, played by lovely and charming French actress Edith Scob, has gathered with her children for a birthday. Her children have come from their careers, all over the world, to be with her. During the course of the celebration, they begin exchanging memories, sentiments, the realities of fulfilling careers in a modern global economy, and, the importance of their love and sentiment for each other.

In the wake of the mother's demise, the family explores the values that they hold most dearly. As all of us must face, in our modern lives, they make compromises so that they may continue with their careers, their global pursuits, and their relationships outside of the family. The denouement arrives when they decide to sell their mother's considerable estate, and, donate many of her objets d'art to the Musée d'Orsay.

The film witnesses the resolution of their grief, fears, hopes and dreams, as they gradually let go of the art that their mother had collected, and, which had surrounded them when they were children.

Juliette Binoche (as a blonde) is no less than brilliant in this performance. In many ways, it involved another enactment of her extraordinary, and award-winning, performance in "Bleu", in the well-known and respected French trilogy - Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge, by Kiezlowski. Three Colors Trilogy (Blue / White / Red)

This film exlplores all of our feelings, spirit, and thoughts, as all of us now struggle for identity in a global conscioussness, fast becoming smaller, and smaller, and smaller . . . .

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The core of me... April 10, 2012

By Andrew Ellington VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

There are few films that capture the authenticity of life quite like `Summer Hours', a small and intimate portrayal of family life in all of its various stages yet confined to a simmer. The film moves rather languidly, floating in and out of `moments' that capture a whole far grander than many films concocted in recent years. This film is touching, moving and ultimately reassuring for it understands the intricacies that make the finale so profound.

Anti-climactic can be far more climactic than we give it credit for.

`Summer Hours' delves into the lives of three individuals; Frederic, Adrienne and Jeremie, shortly after the death of their mother. As they all gathered together for her seventy-fifth birthday, they are told that once she passes they are free to do whatever they like with her belongings, including her beautiful estate. Once she dies, differences in her children start to creep into the way they wish to dispense of their inheritance of sorts. Their values, their futures, their ideals are all called into play as they discuss and compromise with one another over the belongings their beloved mother left behind.

But this film is so much more than that.

This film is far less about `things' and more about people and the way they affect our lives. As her children are left to sort through all she left behind, it is less her belongings and more her legacy, while barely mentioned, that makes the strongest impact. Lives move so quickly that our actions can be deceiving, but there are beautiful moments that pick up on the subtle hints that chip away at the truth behind the eyes of these newly orphaned adults. By the film's end, one is brought to a sharper realization of the importance and enriching fragments of life itself, and one can beautifully grasp the sincerity of every frame.

With fine performances from the entire cast, Olivier Assayas directs a modern masterpiece; a stunning piece of cinema that comes full circle in its own message; closing out with a sequence that says so much about the core of this film and where `life' is headed.