A family of five lives peacefully in rural France, happily and alone from the outside world. One day a major highway construction project, which was abandoned 10 years ago, is finished, ultimately pushing this family too their limits. Ursula Meier's Home is a unique and interesting drama that touches on the sancitity of the place we call home as well as being an eco-parable. The film spends a good amount of time with the family before the highway opens, capturing how happy and care-free the family is. In these scenes the film establishes all the important and genuine relationship dynamics which will tested later in the film. Just imagine going from an existence in which your life is one of complete tranquility to the constant buzz of the highway as busy cars go by. This is what we witness, with Home doing a fantastic job at creating the tension and suspense over what many of us would consider as trivial everyday distractions. The cinematography of Home certainly aids in creating this emotional effect, going from warm and open landscapes to a more claustrophobic feel as these characters begin to affected. The mother, played by Isabelle Huppert, is really the most important character to the films thematic intentions. She is a woman who is threatened by the highway as if she fears it gives her children reason to runaway to the outside world. Much of what happens in Home with the various characters is subtle and understated, but the confrontational elements certainly threaten to tear them apart. My only real problem with Home is towards the end of the film where I thought it tried a little too hard to get its message across, inevitably sacrificing some of the believability of the narrative. That being said, Ursula Meier's Home works so well because of its well-defined characters, making some of the more overly dramatic moments towards the end easier to stomach. 7.75/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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