THE DISTRIBUTORs of Arnaud Desplechin's extraordinary new film have issued a carefully worded statement to explain why it is emerging 10 days after Twelfth Night. Employing the sort of tortuous logic that used to characterise editorials in Pravda, the notes explain that A Christmas Talemay be set at Christmas, but it is by no means aboutChristmas. Got that?
Never mind. The director of Kings & Queenhas enlivened (or, at least, energised) grim old January with another impressively rich and allusive drama. It is true to say that A Christmas Talerevisits a very familiar theme in French cinema: the discontents of a well-read, surly bourgeois family. But Desplechin fills every frame with innovation and is never content to coast towards the comfort zone. You've seen a lot of films a bit like this, but none that is verylike this.
A monstrously controlled Catherine Deneuve plays Junon Vuillard, the materfamilias of a dynasty with a genetic propensity towards leukaemia. Some decades before the film begins, her young son contracted the disease, but none of the family satisfied the conditions for a bone-marrow transplant and he subsequently died. Now Junon has the ailment herself and needs one of her toxic relatives to donate his or her own marrow. With this in mind, the Vuillards gather for a Christmas of booze, telly and blood tests.
Henri (Mathieu Amalric) Junon’s drunken, foul-mouthed son, spits fury at everyone he meets. Paul (Emile Berling), her equally troubled grandson, tries to fight off hallucinations. Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), her good- natured husband, attempts to spread cheer. Nobody pulls a cracker or dons a festive hat.
The various dilemmas the family encounters have been aired everywhere from Dostoevsky to Dallas. But Desplechin brings such restless verve to the storytelling that the cliches never have time to settle. Featuring archaic iris effects, puppet sequences and references to surprising movies – at one point, he restages a scene from Vertigo– the film reminds us of an often forgotten aspect of the Nouvelle Vague. Where else will you encounter snatches of Seamus Heaney juxtaposed with key excerpts from The Ten Commandments?
Yet, for all the post-modern riffs, this consistently well-acted film manages to impart some grim news about the emotional barriers humans erect between one another. Sadly, for too many people, Desplechin’s drama probably embodies the true meaning of Christmas.
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric , Anne Consigny, Hippolyte Girardot, Emile Berling, Chiara Mastroianni Club, IFI, Dublin, 150 min ****
