When Fall Is Coming (Quand vient l'automne)

 

Director François Ozon

WHEN FALL IS COMING (Quand vient l'automne)                      B                                            France  (104 mi)  2024  d: François Ozon

It’s hard to believe this is an Ozon film, though a cinematic subtlety is on display throughout, with one foot in melodrama and one foot in realism, filmed like a mystery thriller.  Having seen all but one of his nearly two dozen features, making this his 24th feature in the last 24 years, deception is a prevalent theme, where what matters most is what lies below the surface, as earlier assumptions are later shattered, with a shift in tone, suggesting people are not who they appear to be.  There’s really nothing else in his repertoire like this, as it deals with death and aging, offering a reflection on mortality, something he dealt with previously in TIME TO LEAVE (2005), which examined the ramifications of a terminal illness, where life literally slips away from a young gay man, while this may be the only Ozon film, now in his mid-50’s, to star an aging protagonist, though SWIMMING POOL (2003) featured a middle-aged Charlotte Rampling in her 50’s grieving over the loss of her husband.  Retaining his penchant for minimalism, the film this most closely resembles may be Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021), switching the focus from children to the elderly, as there’s a mystifying ghostly presence of death lurking underneath this film.  At the center of the picture is Michelle (French stage and screen actress and reputable theater director Hélène Vincent, frequently working with Patrice Chereau when she was young), an elderly grandmother who has retired to a quiet existence in a small village in Burgundy near her longtime friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), having left a tumultuous life in Paris.  Both appear in Ozon’s By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2019), while Vincent appeared in Alain Berliner’s My Life in Pink (Ma Vie en Rose) (1997) as well as Kieślowski’s THREE COLORS: BLUE (1993), and made her first movie in 1969.  One of the things driving the film is how easily older people are forgotten in today’s society, rarely appearing onscreen, with Ozon intentionally choosing actresses in their 70’s and 80’s to be at the heart of the picture, offering an intimate portrait of mature independent women in a stripped down film anchored in reality, turning into an understated psychological crime drama and a poignant character study.  Michelle’s life is uncomplicated, attending services at her local parrish, taking long walks in the woods, driving her friend around, tending to an overgrown garden, or reading, often seen eating alone, where her days are filled with silence.  One thing that jumps out at you are the impossible-to-miss words “Liberté! Égalité! Sexualité!” chiseled onto the outdoor stone structure of a church, which plays a prominent role in this film, where funerals are like the changing cycles of the seasons.  That phrase is the official slogan of the French Republic, enshrined in the Constitution, representing the fundamental values of the French nation, prominently featured in the May 1968 Paris protests, stressing the importance of freedom and equality in the context of sexuality.

Michelle eagerly awaits an upcoming visit from her her adult daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier from SWIMMING POOL, but hasn’t worked with Ozon in decades, appearing earlier in 8 WOMEN in 2002 and WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS in 2000) accompanied by her ten-year old grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos), with the women picking wild mushrooms in the woods anticipating their visit from Paris.  While Michelle showers affection on a grandson she adores, who obviously loves spending time with his grandmother in the countryside, her narcissistic daughter is another story, as she’s going through a separation from her husband in Dubai, is constantly on her phone, and is emotionally distant right from the outset, showing signs of antagonism towards her mother, completely altering the peaceful dynamic of a countryside retreat.  The hostile demeanor of Valérie isn’t understood right away, as we’re not privy to the root of the problem, but her outspoken animosity suggests this is Ozon’s answer to the ungrateful children in Ozu’s Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953), where the busy necessities of life, working and raising a family, have unintended consequences, as they tend to leave their own parents behind, no longer viewed as needed anymore, where they are easily discarded as non-essential.  The stark contrast between mother and daughter couldn’t be more apparent, as Michelle is obviously a generous and kind-hearted woman, while her self-absorbed daughter thinks of little other than herself, brazenly demanding that her mother immediately transfer the deed of her Burgundy property, as it’s in her son’s best interests.  A dumbfounded Michelle reminds her that she already gave her the title to her property in Paris.  Similarly, Marie-Claude’s grown son Vincent (Pierre Lottin), is fresh out of prison, and all we really know about his past is that “he got into some trouble when he was younger.”  The weight of the past is very apparent, but the perspective driving the film is that of the two older friends, as they obviously have regrets about the troubles their children face, yet they’re willing to excuse bad behavior in others while refusing to extend similar grace to themselves, as Marie-Claude’s harsh view of Vincent, who’s had his fair share of failures, contrasts sharply with Michelle’s more forgiving demeanor, yet the onslaught of criticism Michelle faces from her daughter, whose pervasive scorn and bitterness overshadows everything, leaves her reeling in silent anguish, having no answers to combat her heavy resentment.  While it’s clear these women have extremely strained relationships with their adult children, there is less emphasis on the children, who simply aren’t as fully formed characters.  But a terrible accident occurs when Valérie is poisoned from the mushrooms her mother picked earlier that day with Marie-Claude, requiring emergency intervention and a trip to the hospital, where she nearly dies, and couldn’t be more bitter towards her mother afterwards, suspecting she actually tried to kill her.  Right then and there she grabs her son and leaves, with no intentions of ever coming back, leaving Michelle devastated by the tragic turn of events.  Perhaps the most telling point is that Ozon’s own aunt accidentally poisoned the entire family with mushrooms she picked herself, a haunting memory that lingers in the imagination, something one never forgets, while there is a cinematic precedent in Sacha Guitry’s CONFESSIONS OF A CHEAT (1936), listed at #49 on Cahiers du Cinema’s 2008 list of greatest 100 films.

In order to help Vincent get a fresh start and stay out of trouble, Michelle agrees to employ him as her gardener, which is more than she can handle, and he does an excellent job, becoming an invaluable asset and someone she can rely upon.  Marie-Claude is a bit taken aback by Michelle’s growing relationship with her son, and is shocked to learn she’s loaned him money to start a bar, something he’s always wanted to do, but his mother is afraid it will attract the wrong kind of people.  Perhaps trying to fill the void of her missing daughter, this friendship with Vincent feels startling and abrupt, where we never really learn about the mysteries of his past, which remain unspoken, wondering what trouble may erupt at any moment, as he does sneak out at night into a gay cruising area, but we do learn of the dark past that connects Michelle to Marie-Claude, as they were former Belle de Jour prostitutes in Paris with a high-priced clientele, an unorthodox way of earning money to support their children on their own, with no conventional jobs available to women at the time, establishing a connection to Chantal Akerman’s eye-opening and massively influential Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce,1080 Bruxelles (1976).  This revelation may explain why they left Paris and ventured into the countryside, remaining lifelong friends, where one of the first church sermons we hear from a priest concerns Mary Magdalene, the prostitute that Christ blessed, expressing a theme of atonement for the sins of the past.  People easily overlook the lives of older people, as we often forget about the complexities of their own lives, with Michelle remaining a woman of mystery, where even at the end, we’re not really sure of just who she is.  Written by Ozon in collaboration with Philippe Piazzo, shot by Jérôme Alméras, who shot Ozon’s wonderfully inventive In the House (Dans La Maison) (2012), and was one of three cinematographers used in Bertrand Tavernier’s Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français) (2016), while the delicate musical score is written by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, two brothers who composed the music for Audrey Diwan’s 2023 Top Ten List #10 Happening (L’événement) (2021).  A series of unexpected deaths occurs, with the circumstances clouded in ambiguity, with the director deliberately subverting our expectations by leaving out what actually happened, a device that was also used in Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute) (2023), exploring questions of guilt and innocence that viewers must decide for themselves, where a pregnant female police inspector (Sophie Guillemin) suspects a tragic accident may have actually been a murder, with a dark cloud hovering over the bucolic landscape, establishing a kinship with the same elusive questions asked in Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia (Miséricorde) (2024).  While moral questions are introduced, they remain unanswered, with the film reaching no easy conclusions, where a ghostly presence haunts Michelle, like a physical manifestation of her fears, and a guilt that is troubling her, providing an eerie strangeness to what we witness in the latter stages of one’s life.

A History of Violence

 

Director David Cronenberg on the set

Cronenberg with Viggo Mortensen

Cronenberg with Mortensen and Monica Bello

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE                      A-                                                                             USA  Germany  (96 mi)  2005  d: David Cronenberg

This might be a good time to re-examine an earlier work of Viggo Mortensen in this David Cronenberg film.  One of the most versatile directors working in cinema today, pioneering the body horror sub-genre into the mainstream, finding subtext in the strangest places in order to uncover our true nature, typically depicted with a pronounced visual flair, earning a great deal of commercial success while exploring deeply unsettling philosophical ramifications.  His first Hollywood studio feature since the 1980’s, adapted from an obscure graphic novel, this may be the most mainstream film of his career, yet also one of the most subversive, both celebrating and deconstructing the American Dream.  The film was almost universally praised, listed as the #1 best film of the year by Amy Taubin from The Village Voice, Amy Taubin: 1987-2005 and J. Hoberman from The Village Voice in 2005, #2 by Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in 2005, and #3 by Jonathan Rosenbaum in 2005.  The Village Voice’s annual poll by critics and film writers named it the best picture of 2005 by the widest margin in their history, joining a long list of cutting edge directors who previously claimed this distinction, Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999), David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001), Todd Haynes’ FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002), Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (2004), with Cronenberg also named best director in the same poll, suggesting the film is part of the pervasive American culture.  Set in a small, predominantly rural, all-white community in Indiana, part of America’s heartland, which suggests an idyllic existence, or a place out of time, a town of “nice people,” according to the sheriff, but part of a delusional portrait of an idealized America, where the opening sequence exemplifies the director’s command of the medium, a masterful long shot that is all mood with a precise malevolent tone, including outrageous shades of dark humor, as Cronenberg does with this film what Eastwood failed to do in MYSTIC RIVER (2003), which is to establish, at the core of this film, believability.  A mix of postmodern sensibilities and arthouse aspirations, the film successfully straddles the line between a thriller and an art film, where it’s intriguing how Cronenberg wordlessly connects between characters as well as the audience, using complex layers that make it difficult to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, as many of the evil characters never cross the line of out and out criminal behavior, while many of the righteous and good characters do cross that line, yet for understandable motives.  The question is whether the lead protagonist can renounce violence and forge a new identity, with the film hinting he cannot, as his violent past comes back to haunt the present, reverting to his old ways to save and protect his family, where the primitive violence is very intimate and physical, with the viewing audience becoming complicit in the violence as well, as we identify with the emotional turmoil the characters’ face, which necessitates a kind of moral accounting for that desire for violence, becoming a snapshot of America coming of age in the shadows of violence, with Cronenberg holding a mirror up to society.  They appear to resemble the crises of ordinary people, especially as the attackers are so evil and callous, so we have to accept the consequences, though there are also indications that he has finally cleansed himself of that violence in order to be integrated back into his family, expressed through a family dinner scene, as he’s invited to rejoin the family for a classic Midwestern meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  

With bad guys on the loose, almost in the abstract, the film changes gears and zeroes in on a typical loving family somewhere in small-town Indiana, where Tom, Viggo Mortensen, an aw-shucks everyday kind of guy who runs a Main Street diner, with Monica Bello as Edie, his loving and supportive wife, with two kids, a befuddled teenage boy Jack (Ashton Holmes) who is the victim of a high school bully in a letter jacket and what looks like a cute but over-pampered blond, curly-haired, 6-year old daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes).  In this film there are no bizarre locales, and no over-stylizations, but it does express violence as an organic phenomenon, drawing on the Western and the gangster genres in order to achieve new levels of consciousness.  The rhythm of life is established and broken when the bad guys enter the diner and get their lunch handed to them by soft-spoken, mild mannered Tom, a stand-in for Clark Kent, who saves the day and is instantly turned into a reluctant hero, where the shift from hero to vigilante happens in an instant, as does the shift from professional killer to American hero, in this case viewed as one and the same.  We are reminded that women and children everywhere live with men who are killers, as they live with men who were soldiers, who did what they had to do during wartime.  Living with killers is not a difficulty, but only becomes troubling when that killing is not sanctioned by a larger purpose.  Mortensen is an actor who can play large or small with equal skill.  Amid a growing sense of paranoia and fear, causing him to remark at one point, “I think I’m losing my mind,” a strange tale of double identity is unfolding.  On the surface, he appears to be an all-American family man, allowing Cronenberg to exploit prevalent themes that occur throughout much of his work, namely, the way things appear can be deceptive, and the idea that normal conventions we use in our everyday lives can be highly dubious.  The director engages in philosophical questions of order and disorder, which can be unclear, especially in the context of our uncertainty in the world around us, yet there’s something deeply unsettling in the way Cronenberg shows how notions of deception can be tied to our own identity.  With various forces of deception undercutting the prevailing reality, Cronenberg makes us question ideas we have about who we are.  Despite his undesired popularity, more bad guys arrive in the form of Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), who is missing one eye, and attributes its loss to Tom, who he recognizes as gangster Joey Cusack from the old neighborhood in Philly, a revelation that exposes the monstrosity of his former life which threatens the stability of his marriage when Edie discovers who he really is, where this violent past continues to pose a threat lurking over the present even after the film is over.  Harris stalks him, very much like the high school bully that continues to pick on the son, until all hell break loose in each case, where the situation is resolved through unintended violence, but it gets the job done.  Or does it?  As there’s more bad guys where they came from.  Violence only leads to more violence, which sometimes seems like the only way, as without it, innocent individuals would continue be victimized and harmed, so at the very least, we understand and are willing to accept its place in our society, all precipitated here by seething male anger. 

Interesting that Cronenberg establishes some healthy marital sex, even after twenty years of marriage, which adds credibility to the vulnerability of the characters.  We see them when no one is looking, and they maintain their interest and intellect.  There are extended scenes of morally questionable sex balanced against extreme violence and death.  The complexity of Monica Bello’s performance is stunning, bewildered at the enormity of his deceit, remaining fierce and independent, yet she’s nearly raped by her husband with rough sex on the stairs, who turns into a monster to defend his family.  Again, this borders on rape, though the sex is consensual, despite elements of force, where we see her back is badly bruised afterwards, prompting Tom to ask jokingly, “What have you done with my wife?”  Turning into something else entirely, this movie is about an outsider suppressing the more grotesque excesses of his bloody past to fit into mainstream American life, where this newfound knowledge of her husband’s violent past unleashes new behaviors and emotions in her, which may as well be a metaphor for the film – unintended consequences.  As Tom has to come to terms with Joey, and all the ramifications of his so-called controlled violence, so too does his family and his town, as they’re all interconnected.  Summoned back to Philadelphia by his crime boss brother, Richie Cusack (William Hurt), who bluntly acknowledges “You’re living the American dream.  You really bought into it, didn’t you?” yet it is also a day of reckoning, in the very worst way, forcing him to deal with it in the only language the criminal underworld understands, extreme violence, which is jarring to say the least, but he didn’t exactly have much of an alternative, becoming a very real and unavoidable part of human existence.  This violent side disrupts the idyllic harmony of small town life in America, where everything is safe and good, a stark contrast to the violent lifestyle in the cities, where the apparent tension is a factor throughout the film, with both sides imperceptibly blending into one another without our noticing, offering redemptive possibilities.  The nauseating acts of violence are brutal, but not gratuitous, establishing the world as a dangerous place, and is juxtaposed against the innocence of Tom’s daughter awaking from a horrible dream with shadow monsters, which is clearly meant to subvert the world established by the film.  There is a brilliant and elegant pace and style throughout, economical and spare, without a single wasted frame, using Howard Shore music that sounds like Aaron Copland in Our Town, pure understated small town Americana, prideful, even heroic, yet mourning a faraway loss or regret, a reminder that death is a fundamental fabric of small town life.  An essential question this film asks is whether a person is allowed forgiveness for an immoral past after he demonstrates a genuinely reformed character and a willingness to live in society peacefully and even benevolently, but does not make legal reparations for specific crimes?  Cronenberg’s wordless interplay is astonishing, particularly at the end, which remains so ambiguous, played without dialogue, wondering who this man really is, questions that also gnaw at his family.  Is this film about the moral redemption of Tom, or about the moral downfall of his family?  More specifically, it asks us to consider the cost that must be paid to maintain the family as the moral center of the United States.  Americans have a long history of violence, suggesting we secretly crave what we publicly condemn, where the film may be less about forgiving and more about forgetting, questioning how many lies can we absorb to still remain true to ourselves?