Come along to the Dean Crowe Theatre on Tuesday December 8 as Athlone Film Club leads you into the Christmas season with A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noel ), a film that appeared on many critics’ top 10 list of the best films of 2009 and was also a leading contender for the prestigious Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.
For some, Christmas means the joy of spending time with loved ones. But not for the Vuillard family in this blackly comic film directed by Arnaud Desplechin. Desplechin has created a multigenerational drama around a gorgeously fractious family that comes together for a memorable Christmas week reunion.
Instead of egg nog, bile and venom flow at the family get-together when estranged son Henri (Mathieu Amalric ) returns. His mother, Junon (French legend Catherine Deneuve ), has cancer, and Henri may be the bone marrow donor match that could save her life. Oldest daughter Elizabeth is equally unhappy to see her brother; he has been an emotional and financial drain on the family, and she had him legally banished from the family six years ago. But with his return, old wounds are freshly opened as the entire family gathers together for what could be their last holiday.
Director Desplechin's previous film Kings and Queens established his ability to seamlessly meld drama and comedy, and A Christmas Tale continues that tradition. This French film easily moves the audience between laughter, gasps, and tears. The behaviour of the Vuillard famille is atrocious at times, and it goes beyond just the awful--and sometimes awfully funny things they say to one another. But Desplechin has no trouble acheiving the right tone in these moments, and his postmodern style of filmmaking (with elements such as the actors addressing the camera ) is perfectly suited to the material. His ensemble cast includes Jean-Paul Roussillon, Denueve's real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, and Melvil Poupaud, and though each does a fantastic job, it's the bitter and hilarious interplay between Amalric's Henri and Deneuve's Junon that carries the film.
It's not destined to be a feel-good holiday classic à la It’s a Wonderful Life, but A Christmas Tale may prove a perfect prescription for when viewers' families get to be a little too much!
It is also a film you don’t want to see end, not because the people are so happy but because they are so human and so alive.
So come along and kick start your Christmas season, Tuesday December 8 at 8pm in the Dean Crowe Theatre. There will be a pre-screening complimentary wine reception in the theatre bar at 7.30pm preceding the film.
For further information email [email protected] or log on to www.athlonefilmclub.com
