"35 Rhums" (2008) Dir.: Claire Denis
'35 Rhums' is a slow, elliptical and deliberate film revolving around the four tenants of a house in what appears to be the greater Paris area. At its core are a father (Lionel) and his late-teenage daughter (Josephine), with the middle-aged taxi driver Gabrielle and the impulsive young Noe, living downstairs with his cat, rounding off a kind of extended family. They seem closer than your usual co-tenants and there's a suggested intimacy behind their functional and un-dramatic interactions, though this is all left unexplained for quite some time; indeed, so much so that it's tempting for the viewer to wonder if they've missed some crucial dialogue or failed to infer something that Claire Denis has intended them to. But this is a film that rewards not only patience but also a keen eye for behavioural detail. The realism of '35 Rhums' lies in its understatement of the relationships, shared histories, and occurrences (large and small) that make up the story. This is, I think, one of the finer points of the film, though it only became apparent upon further reflection.
Lionel is a train driver and his daughter is a student. The absence of a mother in the apartment is immediately clear but, like many other aspects of the film, the specifics are not elaborated on as part of the setup. Neither is the wistfulness of Gabrielle as she chain-smokes and awaits Lionel's return home from nights at work, where his co-worker Rene is depressed about his upcoming retirement. (We see that the colleagues are as close-knit as the tenants.) Noe is restless and muses on his tendency not to settle anywhere too long. In an amusing scene, he discovers his aged cat has died in her sleep and offhandedly decides to take a job in Angola because there's nothing to stick around for any longer. This upsets Josephine, and she takes off to Germany with her father for a few days.
All this occurs within a fairly short time frame, and in between we are shown glimpses of the unexplained histories that made the first half of the film a little vague. In fact, there is a particular scene where I felt that the movie really connected itself: Gabrielle's cab breaks down on the way to a concert, and the four co-tenants are sheltered from a rainstorm in an empty bar. Resigned to the evening's ruined plans, they eat and drink away, and over this long set piece all the hints and glances and suggestions of the preceding scenes are brought together and made into something tenable.
From here, '35 Rhums' leads us successfully through moments of comedy, tragedy and finality. Crucially, it never changes its pace or its observational filming style after this point. To do so would cheapen the tone of the introductory hour, and be rather jarring at that. It reaches its end without any great resolution, which could be seen as a weakness by anyone still expecting a traditional climax by this stage. But if you're already this far into the film (and this review), that probably doesn't apply to you. We are left to assume that the characters' lives simply go on, though not unchanged by certain events and discoveries that I won't spoil for anyone here.
The impression I came away with is that '35 Rhums' is an intimate film about the culmination of people, events of the past and present, and how these can close off little chapters of our lives and sometimes go unnoticed. It is not for everyone, and it is definitely not flawless - there's some dangling symbolism to do with rice cookers (yup, you read right), and I can't work out if Claire Denis is trying to make a social point with the virtually all-black casting. Aside from a short scene at the university where students are discussing the Third World debt, it seems to be entirely incidental (which, in turn, makes the dialogue in that scene appear incidental also). But my knowledge of urban French societal make-up is nil, so I can't comment further. It is essentially a decent and touching work, very well acted and captured, and if you have patience and aren't averse to a definite French style, then it could be your kind of movie.
'35 Rhums' is a slow, elliptical and deliberate film revolving around the four tenants of a house in what appears to be the greater Paris area. At its core are a father (Lionel) and his late-teenage daughter (Josephine), with the middle-aged taxi driver Gabrielle and the impulsive young Noe, living downstairs with his cat, rounding off a kind of extended family. They seem closer than your usual co-tenants and there's a suggested intimacy behind their functional and un-dramatic interactions, though this is all left unexplained for quite some time; indeed, so much so that it's tempting for the viewer to wonder if they've missed some crucial dialogue or failed to infer something that Claire Denis has intended them to. But this is a film that rewards not only patience but also a keen eye for behavioural detail. The realism of '35 Rhums' lies in its understatement of the relationships, shared histories, and occurrences (large and small) that make up the story. This is, I think, one of the finer points of the film, though it only became apparent upon further reflection.
Lionel is a train driver and his daughter is a student. The absence of a mother in the apartment is immediately clear but, like many other aspects of the film, the specifics are not elaborated on as part of the setup. Neither is the wistfulness of Gabrielle as she chain-smokes and awaits Lionel's return home from nights at work, where his co-worker Rene is depressed about his upcoming retirement. (We see that the colleagues are as close-knit as the tenants.) Noe is restless and muses on his tendency not to settle anywhere too long. In an amusing scene, he discovers his aged cat has died in her sleep and offhandedly decides to take a job in Angola because there's nothing to stick around for any longer. This upsets Josephine, and she takes off to Germany with her father for a few days.
All this occurs within a fairly short time frame, and in between we are shown glimpses of the unexplained histories that made the first half of the film a little vague. In fact, there is a particular scene where I felt that the movie really connected itself: Gabrielle's cab breaks down on the way to a concert, and the four co-tenants are sheltered from a rainstorm in an empty bar. Resigned to the evening's ruined plans, they eat and drink away, and over this long set piece all the hints and glances and suggestions of the preceding scenes are brought together and made into something tenable.
From here, '35 Rhums' leads us successfully through moments of comedy, tragedy and finality. Crucially, it never changes its pace or its observational filming style after this point. To do so would cheapen the tone of the introductory hour, and be rather jarring at that. It reaches its end without any great resolution, which could be seen as a weakness by anyone still expecting a traditional climax by this stage. But if you're already this far into the film (and this review), that probably doesn't apply to you. We are left to assume that the characters' lives simply go on, though not unchanged by certain events and discoveries that I won't spoil for anyone here.
The impression I came away with is that '35 Rhums' is an intimate film about the culmination of people, events of the past and present, and how these can close off little chapters of our lives and sometimes go unnoticed. It is not for everyone, and it is definitely not flawless - there's some dangling symbolism to do with rice cookers (yup, you read right), and I can't work out if Claire Denis is trying to make a social point with the virtually all-black casting. Aside from a short scene at the university where students are discussing the Third World debt, it seems to be entirely incidental (which, in turn, makes the dialogue in that scene appear incidental also). But my knowledge of urban French societal make-up is nil, so I can't comment further. It is essentially a decent and touching work, very well acted and captured, and if you have patience and aren't averse to a definite French style, then it could be your kind of movie.