HOME

France, 2008, 99 minutes, Colour.
Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet.
Directed by Ursula Meier.

There's no place like... Well, there aren't so many like this home, at least in France.

This is a road movie – well, the home is at the edge of a highway that simply stops near this home and has been like that for years. A generally contented family is able to live happily, using the road for bike riding, playing games and can cross it at any time to go to work, school or shopping.

Then comes the news. The authorities are going to complete the highway. Suddenly they do. Then there is the waiting (all the time fueled by local radio which lauds the highway as the greatest improvement for the area) for the first cars. It fulfils the Field of Dreams adage (or, in this case, nightmare), If you build it, they will come. And they do.

A lot of the film is the family trying to cope with the sets of guard rails, trying to cross the road, observing the cars. But, then it is the noise and the constancy. They can cut themselves off and make their house soundproof, but this imprisons them and begins to suffocate them, often literally with a lack of ventilation.

They break out … and... well, who knows because the films stops there.

You probably need to be in an open frame of mind and an agreeable mood to immerse yourself in the details of the family life and the quandaries about the road and the noise. The film is evocative rather than explanatory. But, you really feel you have been there and shared this strange home experience.

Isabelle Huppert is excellent, as always, as the contented mother who does not want to move but is affected by the encroaching effects of the speedy rat race. Olivier Gourmet is the jovial father. There are three children with Kacey Mottet Klein a standout as their very young son.

It's obviously a fable – but, with homes, families, roads and cars, and no explicit pronouncements, the message of the fable is what the audiences make it.

1.The French style, the subject, artistic, experimental?

2.The freeway, the reality, its look? The end of the freeway, interrupted, neglected? The building and extension, the machinery? The fields around the freeway? The old house, its grounds, the family using the freeway for play, crossing it? Julien and his bike? The opening, the cars, the increasing traffic, traffic jams?

3.The atmosphere, of the road, the house, the environment? The title?

4.The noise, traffic, family, the boisterousness, the noise of the traffic, excluding the noise, the silence in the walled-in house? The musical score?

5.The introduction, the family at play, noisy, game, a united family, their spirit? The years there, making the house their home? Safety and security?

6.The personalities of the family: the father, going to work, his spirit, cheerful, loving his wife, caring for the children? The issue of safety? The mother, neurotic, feeling safe in the house, her motherly attitudes, washing and doing the family chores? Judith, older, sunbathing, clashing with the others, participating in the games? Marion, her age, eccentricity? Julien, young, his age, playing? The domestic sequences, the baths, the horseplay, the meals?

7.The surroundings of the house, the ordinary life, meals, listening to the radio, the car to work, the school bus, the children coming home, playing, the husband coming home, the bikes and the other boys who were friends of Julien?

8.Julien hearing news of the road being continued, going out with his father to test it, the mother’s reaction? The machines arriving, the quick work? Their reaction, watching? Continually listening to the radio news – and the difficulties of the radio, going on and off? Their waiting, the eventual coming of the cars, their watching? The people watching them from the cars?

9.The encroaching of the freeway, the greater traffic, the times, the difficulties in crossing, the rails, the dangers?

10.The family coping, the tunnel, the furniture and carrying it across?

11.The family dealing with the traffic at first, coping with the noise? The gradual change of attitude, the gridlock and people coming onto the property, playing, curious, watching Judith? The reactions? Whether to move or not? Judith and her leaving? Their buying the insulation, getting the equipment, carrying it across the freeway through the dangers?

12.The building, insulating it, closing it in, the increasing heat, the lack of air, the exclusion of the noise, their being inside, sweating, the effect on each of them? The need for air?

13.Their being entombed, the reaction, the mother and her feeling the need to break out, breaking down the wall?

14.The family on the move – to where? (And Judith coming back and finding it all blocked up?)

15.The allegorical nature of the story, the fable – and the ambiguity and possibility of many points?