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| Home (15)
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Dir. Ursula Meier, France, 2009, 98 mins
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adelaide Leroux, Madeleine Budd, Kacey Mottet Klein
Review by Philippa Bradnock
In a crisis-ridden housing market, many people can surely sympathise with the family in Ursula Meier's film, Home. Marthe (Huppert) and Michel (Gourmet) live a contented bohemian existence in an isolated house beside a disused motorway. They have colonised the piece of road outside with furniture, shoes and bric a brac. But one day the roadside barriers are fixed, the road is resurfaced, and the traffic starts to flow again. The family's idyllic lifestyle is destroyed by the onslaught of noise and pollution and they face either a struggle to adapt or the abandonment of their home.
Home gives us little in the way of plot, instead observing how its characters react to such a shocking change. This pays off magnificently, mostly due to the quality of acting. Huppert’s down-turned mouth and hooded eyes, so often haughty, are perfect for Marthe’s tired but happy mother, and Klein also stands out as youngest child Julien, both fascinated and terrified by the developments.
The film conveys a desolate sense of isolation, as the family are cut off on their side of the motorway and the rest of the world carries on on the other. The road gets busier and busier. Julien's friends abandon him, eldest daughter Judith (Leroux) can no longer sunbathe without harassment from passing lorry drivers, and middle child Marion (Budd) becomes obsessed with the prospect of lead poisoning. Meanwhile, Marthe cannot sleep and becomes increasingly unhinged, and Michel, once laid-back, is anxious and angry.
There is a touch of The Cement Garden in these claustrophobic scenes of summer heat and family breakdown, albeit without the more sinister events of that film. But there are still undercurrents of darkness here. Why does Marthe insist on staying? We learn that she has only been happy in this house: has she experienced some past trauma or mental illness?
Michel works, and the children go to school, but we never see beyond the house, and Marthe’s daily activities there. Indeed, when Marion asks why she does not go back to work, it seems preposterous that there should be any concept of work in this world – all that exists is the home. Marthe protests in response that she isn’t in prison. But Home seems to reflect the difficulties of a life lived solely within the domestic sphere; a life at once comforting and insanely confining. Perhaps Marthe is in prison after all.
Meier’s film has a gorgeous textural quality and stillness to it that makes it a pleasure to watch. The light through windows, the furniture strewn across the road at the start, and the lovingly lit skin of the actors are rich and almost tactile. By contrast the tinny glare of the road outside is crass and vulgar, the people who use it an affront to the family’s privacy. Home is a neatly contained and affecting film about the lengths to which we will go to try to preserve the sanctity of our homes against invasion by the world outside.
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