Full of heart and bile, whiskey drenched and reeking of cigarettes, A Christmas Tale hurls the viewer headfirst into a sprawling, gloriously messy, bourgeois comedy populated by a likeable, charming though often irascible, family full of sad-sacks, philosophers and self-obsessed neurotics. There’s the matriarch, Junon (Catherine Deneuve), a dragon lady who exudes maternal warmth when necessary; her husband Abel, who works diligently to keep the peace; their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, a successful playwright who banished her irredeemable younger brother, Henri (Mathieu Amalric), six years earlier; and the baby of the family, Ivan, whose puppyish contentment belies his own fading youth. Hovering above all is the ghost of young Joseph, the first-born son who died from leukemia at age six (Henri was conceived in hopes that his placenta would heal his dying, older brother). These folks, their spouses and children, gather together for a Christmas celebration tinged with dry-eyed melancholy. Junon has recently been diagnosed with leukemia and needs a donor match for a bone-marrow transplant. Thus, much to Elizabeth’s chagrin, Henri returns to the fold.
Combining the sublime sense of yearning and sadness found in Chekhov, the moral and philosophical debate located in Dostoevsky, and the manic, comic rhythms found in Shakespeare (most notably A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is referenced at least three times)—not to mention a knowing bow to Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander— Desplechin has crafted a richly rewarding, psychologically complex, yet beautifully incomplete portrait of a family whose actions can never be truly mastered. Indeed, one of the film’s many virtues is Desplechin’s unwillingness to fill in the narrative gaps; the spectator works diligently yet unsuccessfully to piece together the wide-ranging family history. And Desplechin is a master craftsman, expertly balancing tonal shifts while employing a wide variety of cinematic tricks which never feel out of place (voice-over narration, direct address, flash-backs, iris shots, slow-motion, freeze-frames, blurry and dreamy fades to black, and a complicated film score which often utilizes a tonally incongruous composition cribbed from a Hitchcock film). Desplechin plays with genre expectations in ways that should appeal to folks on this blog. By all accounts, the events depicted reek of Lifetime movies of the week, but A Christmas Tale is a wholly original work of cinematic art (no more and no less than Desplechin’s last film, the masterpiece Kings and Queen).
I loved this film and was surprised to find it available for seven bucks on television (IFC in the Theatres – On Demand). I watched it on Saturday night and was so taken by it that I watched it again Sunday afternoon (before the film turned into a pumpkin). I haven’t done that in years.
One of the most intriguing characters is Elizabeth’s fifteen-year-old son, Paul, a mercurial, sad-eyed adolescent who suffers from schizophrenia and feels as if he is forever letting down his family; yet it is soon determined that Paul and Henri are the only ones carrying the gene that could save Junon’s life (or prematurely kill her; one of the dark ironies bouncing around the walls of the cluttered, Vuillard home). The relationship that develops between Paul and his uncle over the course of a couple of days lacks any hint of sentiment but is moving nonetheless. Even more entrancing are the scenes between Henri and Junon—one on a back yard swing and another, later in the film, in a hospital room—where mother and son playfully trade insults and barbed recollections, providing some of the film’s most loving moments.
Watched this for a third time the other evening and it is still a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it is currently only available via Blockbuster. Seems the waning Viacom subsidary sealed a deal with IFC to solely rent its titles via Blockbuster stores for sixty days before anyone else (Netflix, RedBox, Movie Gallery, mom and pop shops) has access. And then, to add insult to injury, these stores and online ventures must purchase their copies through Blockbuster (you wouldn’t be able to purchase a copy through Amazon even). There are some interesting films in this mix including Soderbergh’s Che films, Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, the animated, horror anthology Fear(s) of the Dark, Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress and on and on. Those with On Demand can access newer IFC films like Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance and the French film Summer Hours via pay-per-view, but if you want to wait for Netflix to get these titles, you’ll have to wait some time.
I waited. It was worth it. A lovely, rowdy film. There were a few stray moments where I felt the overdetermined tug of Plot and Pathos (mostly with a cousin pining for a long-sacrificed love). But more often–like the coin toss in the hospital room at the end–the film was full of bright-eyed playfulness even when its characters wept or gnashed teeth and raged. That coin toss seems crucial in so many ways; early on, one estranged husband–a statistician–works the calculus of mortality for Junon, teasing out the gambles, the probabilities. But the film’s passion is with characters barely attentive to margins and outcomes; it is as if scene’s emotional tone came from a coin toss, narrative melodrama reimagined from moment to moment for its possibilities.
Lovely. Thanks for the long-ago rec, Jeff.
didn’t do it for me. same and Kings and Queens. in both films, the portrayal of mental illness scraped against my sensibility — especially that effected by mathieu amalric, whom i’m getting mighty tired to see darken my screen. i don’t find mental illness funny. this is not judgment, just, as i said, a question of sensibility.
there are many ways in which love-gone-wrong can be portrayed, and i’d like mine to be served straight up, starker, realistic. i’m a fan of realism, though i love Fanny and Alexander, and enjoyed seeing reprised here.
now if i work really hard i’ll catch up with all the films i haven’t seen in the last two years.
maybe i should qualify that i don’t particularly enjoy seeing mental illness represented as histrionic, which is clearly something that is attractive to desplechin. in fact, both in Kings and Queens and here it’s hard to see how the mathieu amalric character is ill at all — or anyone else, including the little boy paul. probably that’s desplechin’s point.
also, interesting how both films portray art as a very solitary pursuit, fulfilling and life-giving, certainly, but also melancholy, and maybe a way to live out one’s melancholy, or survive it.
finally, both films do something with the loneliness of little boys that hit my heart smack in the middle. the old father is pretty lovely in Christmas, but mothers are not exemplary, especially Elizabeth and Junon. in fact, i do find it interesting how desplechin takes apart parenting and shows it as a fairly hopeless job.
It’s been a couple of years or so since I’ve seen Kings and Queen, but I’m pretty sure Amalric’s character in Christmas is not affected by any clinically diagnosed mental illness (he just seems affably manic and dysfunctional) . . . and Paul, although subject to his schizophrenia, is the least histrionic character of the whole bunch. Still, I do appreciate your perspective on these films and I do get what you are saying about Amalric’s character in Kings. I also very much appreciated your second comment/caveat.
I just got the newly revised DSM. It’s hilarious!
Gio, I’ve been meaning to pipe up to just say–good comments, and your critique makes sense to me. Like the use of various camera techniques (the irising lens, e.g.), both films seem to play with a kind of exaggerated affect, so I read Amalric (as you note) not as ill but as super-sized (even if diminutive). Particularly with Christmas, this style worked for me. (I was reminded in some ways of Magnolia, another hyperbolic rollercoaster of tones and storytelling tricks. Or even Dickens?)
Michael, I hear they’re already planning to adapt the new DSM. Justin Timberlake is rumored to be in the running for Autodysomophobia.
mmm, he’s a good choice. Who’s up for dyspareunia? Look it up!