Home (2008)

Life for an isolated rural family is upended when a major highway next to their property, constructed 10 years before but apparently abandoned, is finally opened.

Director:

Ursula Meier

Writers:

Ursula Meier (scenario), Antoine Jaccoud (scenario)

Stars:

Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adélaïde Leroux

7 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Isabelle Huppert	...	Marthe
Olivier Gourmet	...	Michel
Adélaïde Leroux	...	Judith
Madeleine Budd	...	Marion
Kacey Mottet Klein	...	Julien
Renaud Rivier	...	Copain Julien 1
Kilian Torrent	...	Copain Julien 2
Nicolas Del Sordo	...	Copain Julien 3
Hugo Saint-James	...	Copain Julien 4
Virgil Berset	...	Copain Julien 5
Ivaylo Ivanov	...	L'éboueur (as Ivailo Ivanov)
Jean-François Stévenin	...	(voice)
David Collin	...	(voice)
Valdimir Sartori	...	(voice) (as Valdo Sartori)
Stéphane Gabioud	...	(voice)

Storyline

Life for an isolated rural family is upended when a major highway next to their property, constructed 10 years before but apparently abandoned, is finally opened.

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Plot Keywords:

highway | home | air pollution | car | female pubic hair | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Switzerland France Belgium

Language:

French

Release Date:

29 October 2008 (France)

Also Known As:

Дом

Filming Locations:

Bulgaria

Company Credits

Production Co:

Box Productions, Archipel 35, Need Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ursula Meier has been searching for location for nearly one year, even in Canada. Eventually she found a lost part of a highway in Bulgaria. The house in which the movie plays, was built alongside the highway especially for filming. There were up to 300 drivers "playing" the fast moving cars - all were inhabitants of a nearby village. On days without shooting the drivers came visiting the location with their whole families.

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Goofs

Judith throws the cat over the back wall in order to get rid of it, but a later shot shows that the wall is only about 30 foot long and the cat could be back in a few seconds.

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Soundtracks

Wild is the Wind
Performed by Nina Simone

User Reviews

unique and unforgettable visual experience

Have you ever found yourself wondering about those people who live right alongside the freeway - the anonymous folk whose lives we peer into briefly as we hurtle our way past their apartments and houses en route to our destinations? Well, the artists who made "Home" certainly have, and the answer they've come up with makes for a fascinating, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience that, even more than most movies, has to be seen to be appreciated.

The family in "Home" leads a relatively carefree and decidedly unconventional lifestyle. Their house stands adjacent to an abandoned freeway, which they use as their own private recreation area. They also view bath time as a communal experience (this being Switzerland and all).

All is going reasonably well (despite some mild familial tension here and there), until one day and without any warning, the roadway is reopened to traffic, shattering the family's once-peaceful existence with the sounds of whooshing cars and honking horns, the penetrating odor of exhaust fumes and fossil fuels, a diminution of privacy (especially during traffic jams), and a nonstop assault on the senses. Even getting to the other side of the road – to school or to work – becomes a daily, death-defying game of chicken with speeding vehicles whose drivers have no intention of slowing down for bothersome and unwelcome pedestrians.

This tremendously odd little film is obviously intended as a parable about the oppressiveness and chaos of modern life as it encroaches ever more forcefully onto the peace and tranquility of a rural existence. The family members become increasingly ill-tempered, paranoid, neurotic, even violent as the outside world inexorably presses its way into their once-placid lives.

But far more than the characters and themes, it is the astonishing mise-en-scene that ultimately works its way into the viewer's psyche and that makes it hard not only to avert one's eyes during the course of the movie but to get back to one's own "reality" once it's over. Director Ursula Meier's work here is reminiscent of Luis Bunuel in one of his less playful moods, as she focuses on a group of everyday people trapped in a surrealistic nightmare from which they are unable to awaken. It is definitely a case in which the scene becomes an integral reflection of the psychological states of the characters.

Isabelle Hupert and Olivier Gourmet play the parents; Madeleine Budd and Kacey Mottet Klein their two children; and Adelaide Leroux, Gourmet's nubile daughter from a previous marriage who spends most of her time sunbathing for the highly appreciative motorists and truckers who keep whizzing on by.

Unique and unforgettable.