Home (II) (2008) User Reviews

A house is not a home

[MLogo · 8/10 · 3 April 2009]

While I am normally not a fan of bizarre movies, I found this one fascinating. I saw it with the director present - so a few things were explained that would otherwise not be obvious. It is the story of a family who live in a house close to a yet-to-be-finished highway - very close, like right at the guardrail. There is absolutely nothing else in the area. It is not clear whether they own the house or are squatters. They have incorporated the highway into their daily lives, e.g., the son rides his bike back and forth and there is an easy chair out there where they can relax. The authorities decide to complete the highway - and their lives change (that's putting it mildly). They go from a family who seem very happy in their bucolic home setting to an existence filled with traffic, incessant noise, and pollution. In an attempt to get some much-needed quiet, they wall themselves into the house.

The idea for the story came from the writers' observing houses along highways that are incredibly close to the road and wondering what life must be like, both for the people who live in the houses and those who have abandoned the houses. And instead of the people on the road observing the life of the people who live there, it's the people who live there who are observing those on the road.

Since the location is so strange, it turns out that the house and highway are actually in Bulgaria, although a number of other countries were scouted. And the ending which may appear obvious to many people can actually be open to interpretation.

unique and unforgettable visual experience

[Buddy-51 · 8/10 · 27 September 2010]

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.

wish more movies were like that!

[zwazoever · 8/10 · 17 December 2009]

.I give this movie 8/10 because the story is original and well told,the actors definitely held their own and it kept me involved all the way through. it's more than a family living near a highway. The film starts and they are already there and from pieces of conversation you get to know that they've been living there for at least 10 years.you also get to see how simple,normal and even happy their life was before the hwy gets finished.At first ,just like the viewers, they were puzzled,wondering how life will be once the road is complete.Then when it happened,they tried to live their life as if did not happen,the kids will keep on crossing to the other side to go to school until traffic forces them to go under it through a water drain,Mom will try to keep up with gardening and hanging dry her laundry outside until it became impossible.

One night as life became harder and harder for them living by the now very busy and noisy road the husband decided that they must leave but a big fight ensued because Mom wanted to stay, so they ended up staying.Having not much of a choice now the husband became resolute to make the house livable again by cementing all its doors/windows in an attempt to make it noise-free,and that's when things got even worse. While watching this movie I became like a member of the household,worrying for them like they were my own,felt sad when they lost their privacy in their own home because of a traffic jam and even thought I was having problem breathing as they were walled up in the house. Please don't ruin this by asking yourself too many questions and looking for loopholes in the story ,just accept the fact that it's the family's choice to live there- people in real life make way stranger choices than that- and you will be in for quite a ride!

A modern parable

[bloovee · 7/10 · 13 August 2009]

The World Health Organisation reckons regular night-time noise of more than 45dB can ruin your health. Here's a film that treats a fact of modern life and turns into a "home under attack" movie. It's coming, and you can't stop it.... It's quite clever to have a home-invasion movie where the alien force is nothing more scary than noise and loss of privacy.

Swiss writer-director Ursula Meier backs this tale of modern times with jazz tracks, classical work, and Nina Simone. The music is a diversion from the relentless pressure building on the family as they face up to life next to a Trans-European highway.

Cinematographer Agnès Godard captures the images brilliantly, from the pose Michel strikes on his car roof with the chest freezer that now has to be delivered across the new road, to the line of holiday traffic stretching into the distance in one long bidirectional jam.

Four lane highway

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 12 February 2010]

It will be easy for audiences to dismiss this film. In fact, the ambitious project by French-Swiss director Ursula Meier demands a lot from the casual viewer. It is obvious Ms. Meier wanted to say a lot about the disintegration of a family at the center of the story that we first meet on a happy, playful note.

One always wonders about those houses built so close to a highway, or train tracks. The noise alone, would drive the inhabitants mad. As this tale begins, the place where it is located seem almost an idyllic place in which to raise a family. True, the house is situated a few meters away of what appears to be a highway under construction, or perhaps abandoned. The children are able to cross the road without any problems. Michel, the working father leaves the car on the other side of the roadway and Marthe, the mother, can tend to her work without anyone looking at her.

This is a family where the bathtub is shared by parents and children without any question of modesty on anyone's part. Judith, the older daughter loves to sunbathe in the space next to the house clad in a bikini. Judith object when a conservative swim suit arrive for her sister Marion. The younger brother, Julien, loves to run freely in his bicycle.

On the surface, everything seems to be well with the family. Unfortunately, one day, workers arrive to resurface the highway. With that, an infernal traffic drives the family into a frenzied state. Gradually, the inner fabric of what made these five people stick together, begins to erode. Judith is the first one to decamp, when a traffic snarl stops traffic in front of the house. The others try noise stoppers in their ears, to no avail. Michel, in desperation begins to fix the problem by replacing all doors and windows with cinder block, hoping to isolate themselves from the outside noise. Marthe, who has been the most affected by the changes in their lives, wakes up one day and begin to take free herself and the others from the madness they have endured.

"Home" in spite of its premise, doesn't feel claustrophobic at its darkest moments. Ms. Meier wanted perhaps to make a statement for the obvious changes that progress, by way of a new highway, brings. After all, don't we all want to escape to other, more interesting, and quieter places? The family's foundation is shaken by the advent of outsiders looking in on them. They were fine by themselves, but now, even the most menial things like hanging clothes to dry take a different meaning.

The film is worth a view by serious fans. Isabelle Huppert, one of the best actresses around, makes us feel her pain and guilt in her heart. Oliver Gourmet is also effective as Michel. Adelaide Leroux, Madeleine Budd, and Kacey Mottet Klein are seen as Judith, Marion and Julien.

The cinematography by Agnes Godard draws us into the oppressive world Ms. Meier created. Ursula Meier is a serious director who likes to explore for her audience simple things one wouldn't even think about, which is the key to understanding this bizarre tale she has created.

highway to hell

[gardieca · 7/10 · 3 November 2009]

Very interesting and surprising film starring one of my favorite actress, Isabelle Huppert. The film describes the changes that take place into an ordinary family who lives next to a highway.One day the highway is opened, and still life turns into a nightmare.Each member of the family deals with the problem in a different way. All of them try to keep on doing the same things in their own way, but things go wronger day by day.The cast play such excellent roles that you can feel the anxiety as they do.I was asking myself during the film Why don't they leave ? But there are no answers, only questions. Enjoy the film and try to find why.

Superb, Original, Satirical Social and Environmental Comment...

[tim-764-291856 · 9/10 · 11 August 2012]

Isabelle Huppert is a French mother of three, whose husband goes off to work in a big green diesel Mercedes estate. Their youngest is a boy, about 8. Then a girl, about 14, who's studious and questioning. Eldest is a late-teen daughter who wears as little as possible, chain-smokes and sunbathes in a bikini on a lounger in the garden, with heavy metal pounding from a ghetto-blaster.

This scenario and scene is featured and remains with us most of the time, in one form or another. Oh, except that their rather run-down shabby house sits right bang next to a motorway, that carries no traffic, except as the biggest car park imaginable for the family, who also use it as an extension to their property. They need to cross this bitumen desert to reach civilisation; work, shops and school for the kids.

One day, the boy sees trucks on the carriageway, whilst out on his bike. Soon after telling his father, who doesn't believe him, the motorway is resurfaced overnight. Radio reports say that it's the missing link in the national network and there's huge interest from the motoring public. The two youngest anticipate some new projects coming on.

What happens next is bizarre, believable and really rather frightening. And comical. By trying to live their (rather odd) lives exactly as before - crossing the road for school, shopping, bikini-sunbathing - all a few feet away from juggernauts and during a heatwave.

The way that the stakes against them get higher and naturally seem more bizarre, the more they try and carry on regardless, perhaps in the same way as if you tried to re-route an ant trail. Toward the end, you will start wondering where on earth all this can possibly lead to - I'm not going to spoil it for you!

I did think of one of Michael Haneke's early films when watching 'Home' that had this sort of 'in reverse' psychology, but which was decidedly cold, un-humorous - about a perfectly ordinary middle-class Austrian family, who coped - and then didn't.

You can, of course, take Swiss director Ursula Meier's fable as a comedy, or an environmental statement or a family drama, or all three. Being very different, it grabs the attention, without ever being ridiculous and somehow manages to sustain this element and story all the way through. It's also decidedly 'Continental', the bathing habits of the eldest daughter, naked and smoking in the bath listening to her Walkman, with the rest of the family chatting away next to her, mostly clothed. This - and other forms of a natural lack of inhibition seems healthy and refreshing, especially compared to our British straight- laced ways.

I give 9/10 as it's an ambitious film in both its audacity and originality and the fact that it gets away with it, becoming a sort of psychological horror. . .For a film to be so memorable is rare these days, although the title, unfortunately is. All the players, especially Huppert (naturally) are uniformly excellent and totally believable, as is their environment, which IS worrying....

A reversed road movie

[searchanddestroy-1 · 22 November 2008]

What a weird, strange movie. The topic is absolutely worth watched to be believed. An entire family: father, mother and three sons and daughters live just near an abandoned motorway, in the middle of nowhere. They are really happy, just like any family. And suddenly, the speedway opens again. And, of course, this will spoils everything in the quiet family's life. Just imagine.

A few sequences are unforgettable. Especially during a big traffic jam, on summer holiday, when thousands of tourists are forced to stop just in front of our family's home, when the elder daughter is lying on the lawn, sun tanning, in her bathing suit...

Or later, when the father decide to cross the motorway, carrying a big fridge, with the help of his sons and daughters. They must wait for the night and a lighter traffic to succeed in that perilous mission.

The ending of this incredible story is also baffling, - BEWARE SPOILER - and I would say painful, when the elder daughter, who "escaped" from her home, for the reason you can guess !!!, returns to see her parents, brother and sister, and finds the house totally bricked up, from the bottom to the top, with her family inside...

And she gets away, believing everyone went away too...

I felt an acid taste in my mouth.

Brrr....

metaphors

[malta54 · 6/10 · 7 April 2009]

I think that film is full of metaphors whether the director has an aim like that. Mainly, I got the idea of "interventionism to private life". What if some people intervene to your life? Or what if "the state" intervenes your life? I felt a referral to "Big Brother" issue too! Also film lights the way for environmentalism issues. Another issue is "resistance to change". It shows what happens if you resist to change. Feelings of stay-cation and isolation results in craziness. Isabelle Huppert is again at the top of her role playing skills.There is an approach to unknown. None of us had thought living at the edge of a motorway but there are real people living like this. The film's strength is here I think. It shows us something that we see nearly everyday but did not touch or feel even once.

The tragic price paid for restoration of paradise eternal.

[Joliet_Jake68 · 9/10 · 20 July 2013]

A marvelously sad movie that is entirely misinterpreted again and again here.

It is about paradise lost. And the tragic steps a father takes to keep his family together in (eternal) peace. Heart rending salvation through destruction.

A newly activated highway destroys a family's tranquil life. They cannot stay because there is no peace there. They cannot leave because despite the oppressive traffic, their roots remain there.

The husband gradually seals them in, in a bid to keep the noise from an outside world they no longer recognize out.

By my interpretation, the mother dies there, powerless to stop the loss of her idyllic family. The father decides to complete the walling-off of the home as the mother "sleeps," despite the fact that his car is being towed away outside (as he no longer has any need for such material objects), and despite the fact that the opening obliterated by the final brick was their final means of ventilation. He gives his young son a "sleeping pill" and tenderly carries his limp body to bed. His younger daughter does not wish a pill. A rapid scene change makes her means of "sleep" ambiguous. But it is paced with a sense of finality, tragedy, and desperation on the part of the father, not of violence nor of physical suffering.

The daughter who left home briefly returns, only to find the home a crypt, figuratively and literally (I maintain), with no doors or windows. No way in or out. And she leaves.

Interpreted in this light, the ending makes perfect sense. The mother suddenly "awakens" from her "sleep," immediately sledgehammers the cinder blocks covering the door, and emerges into the sunlight, followed by her family. The traffic sounds now seem distant and quiet, as they walk together in the fields, happy in the sun, the highway never in shot, paradise restored.

But why is the highway suddenly quiet? Because the family are no longer there. Their physical forms are still entombed, but their souls are free and together, back in the pristine fields that they loved when the highway was vacant. It is their spiritual forms we are watching, absent of all material possessions, walking together, happy and free forever, back to the existence they recognize and love. The tone is not of triumph over obstacles overcome, but of tragic bliss achieved at a heavy price.

All this imagery is on screen, as a lovely cover for the Bowie song, "Wild Is The Wind," plays. A love song whose chorus features the line, "(My Love,) Don't you know you're life itself?"

And so, I maintain, this film is about the question, "Is a life that has its foundation of love destroyed really any life at all?"

A wonderful ending subtly bittersweet makes this a film worth watching.

Home street home

[johno-21 · 6/10 · 26 January 2010]

I recently saw this at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival where writer/director Ursula Meier was on hand at my screening for an audience Q&A following the film. Meier explained that she got the idea for the film by seeing a house near a busy highway and letting her imagination run away with what kind of people would live there and the effect of being so close to a highway on them. I think we have all wondered about the inhabitants of homes we've seen while riding in a train or car and seeing homes without freeway barrier walls exposed to the noise of the traffic. In this story a family of five live in home where a major highway has been built running through their front yard. this major thoroughfare was never completely finished or opened to use so it has sat unused for years. The family uses the pavement for their personal use and has all their lawn furniture, etc. on it. One day the family learns the highway will be finished and opened at last and the result has a dramatic effect on their lives. They have lived there for 10 years. The mother has a fear of going out in public, the father is claustrophobic, the oldest daughter wants to escape from her boring existence at the isolated house, the youngest daughter is a mathematics and statistics whiz with an accelerated phobia for toxins and the boy is a pretty normal kid who likes hanging out with his friends. This is a strange and quirky film and pretty good as a debut feature for Meier. It was Switzerland's official submission to the 82nd academy awards for Best foreign Language Film. Some very good films come out of Switzerland but I don't think this warrants a BFLF submission. This may too slow and strange for many so I can't recommend it to a general audience but it's different and I would give it a 6.5 out of 10.

fantastique!

[aahoward-444-449575 · 10/10 · 8 August 2012]

I enjoyed this film for its simplicity, artistry and joyous energy. It features some excellent scenes depicting rural French lifestyle and collaborates individual characters with such ease. Towards the end of the film you know how each character will react to certain dilemmas and circumstances. It may seem quite a strange way in which the family dealt with the closing finale but I felt this only added to the films slight wayward edge. Overall I feel that everything from the photography to the production fits nicely into this awkward, stylish quite bleak family affair.

Bravo!

horror without the zombies

[roedyg · 6/10 · 2 August 2012]

Home is a very strange movie. It is a family with two teenage daughters and one young son living in the middle of a huge golden field of grass. A freeway opens right by the house. It gets noisier. The drivers leer. The drivers honk. The noise becomes non-stop. There is a traffic jam and people get out of their cars and stare. The family cannot deal with this and slowly go mad, cementing up the windows. The little boy is the only sane one in the movie. He handles all this as just so much adventure. One daughter is the sort you love to hate, full of herself, selfish, totally absorbed with her appearance, idle, rude. The other is just plain crazy. Mom and Dad are a very loving caring patient couple. It is a movie where the circumstances gradually deteriorate. I think of Roman Polanski's Repulsion for a similar effect. It is like a horror movie -- unpleasantness for the sake of unpleasantness. There are no murders or zombies, just frayed people who cannot cope with the situation. There is quite a bit of nudity, but I just put that down to a difference in the way the French view nudity within the family. It is not sexual. The ending made no sense to me. It just ended things in mid air without any sort of resolution. The whole movie left me queasy, and wondering if perhaps it were some great metaphor than went right over my head.

Kacey Mottet Klein who plays the little boy Julien is an amazing actor. Not once did I notice he was acting. He was completely believable. In one scene he begged his Mom to let him out of being locked in the bathroom. It was heart-melting. I could not stand that frail little character entombed with the rest of that wacko family.

French oddness

[Fransyska · 5/10 · 21 August 2011]

I was first intrigued to see this movie due to the story a bit odd and expecting the talented Isabelle Huppert to be as her usual a rainbow of emotions. All the actors were believable, the story was unusual. It is typical in french movies to add oddness to familiar details but also reflect a variety of feelings.

Somehow, the film is taking a stranger and stranger way and takes the viewer far more than what he had imagined. Different messages went through, and I appreciated the effort but all and all, the movie disappointed me. It is stereotyping people of low social class. You will for sure remember this movie, but don't expect to feel anything once you arrived at the end. Was just decently enjoyable.

quirky movie, claustrophobic and oppressive

[yris2002 · 7/10 · 19 August 2011]

It is not the relaxing, soothing movie one would like to see on a sultry summer night, it is certainly an odd movie, that however leaves some thought-provoking hints. It's the story of an eccentric family, living alongside an abandoned highway, whose life is completely turned upside down, when the highway is suddenly opened after 10 years, and traffic, pollution and intolerable noise start to undermine the physical and mental balance of each member. It's a movie that makes one reflect upon the oppressive condition of people living alongside trafficked roads, and it gets to convey this idea of oppression, only sometimes relieved by a jazz and classical soundtrack and by some scenes which prove funny (see the one with the refrigerator). There are however some unhealthy traits inside this family even before the opening of the highway, mainly concerning too much intimacy shared by its members, which I really did not understand and by the way found disturbing. The mother, too, very well interpreted by Isabelle Huppert (who is always at ease in roles such as this), seems to be incapable to face the world, and afraid of any contact with anything outside the house, and does seem completely mentally sane. The movie gets more and more claustrophobic and suffocating, until a kind of "liberating" finale, which is however open to interpretation. A quirky movie indeed, which reminded me how lucky I am to live in a quiet town, far from traffic and noise.

Endgame - The Prequel

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 30 December 2008]

I suppose it had to happen; pseuds have been speculating for years about just WHERE those Beckett characters were BEFORE they climbed into dustbins and:or got themselves buried up to the neck. Wonder no more for here is an answer of sorts. You have to hand it to Isabelle Huppert; for a major actress she seems to enjoy nothing more than punctuating mainstream movies with, for want of a better word, experimental fare. Here she is in a domestic situation living with husband Olivier Gourmet and their three children, two girls, one boy, and very happy with it thank you very much. Here's the twisteroo; for reasons best known to themselves they have opted to live about twenty yards from a major motorway. Okay, it's been abandoned for some reason but bizarrely their house is located on the opposite side to everything they need - shops, schools, LIFE, so that every time they need anything they have to climb the barrier on their side, cross the motorway and then climb the barrier on the other side. Not that Huppert ever goes anywhere; the kids do, presumably to school as does Gourmet, possibly to work but they practically define the word insular with no social life other than a radio. Comes the day when the motorway becomes reactivated and where the normal thing would be to move they merely invest in breezeblocks and insulation and - get this - wall themselves in, blocking up all windows and doors, in a word entombing themselves. Eventually, wondering who has the oxygen concession Huppert grabs a sledgehammer and applies it where it will do the most good. End of story. It's clearly a metaphor but don't look at me, I'm still trying to figure out the subtext of Bridgit Goes Hawaian.

Huppert is astonishing, but this eco parable family drama resorts to melodrama and unwarranted psycho-thrills

[octopusluke · 30 November 2012]

Home, the directorial debut from young French-Swiss hopeful Ursula Meier, is a film about communal captivity, the disenfranchisement of an archetypal family unit and, in many ways, it's the 'road movie' of directionless modernity.

This César nominated drama follows a dysfunctional family who live beside an abandoned motorway, somewhere in-between two French cities. Although the house is an uninspired concrete block, their surrounding landscape is rather bucolic in stature, with the kids using the roadway as a garden to sunbathe, take a dip in the blow-up pool, or play street hockey across it's straight, uninspired grey surface. Although we never get the conclusive hows and whys of their unconventional living situation, it's implied that it was a decision of desperation on behalf of the agoraphobic, stay-at-home mother Marthe (the enchanting Isabelle Huppert). When her doting husband Michel (Olivier Gourmet) returns home from work one evening to break the news that the road project is going to reconvene, he is in distress and determined that the family should leave immediately. Marthe is less intimidated, resolute on staying in the unlikely place she has made into an idyllic family home. With cars soon filling the motorway day and night, the risk of pollution causes friction to emanate from within the family, and soon their paradise retreat turns into a tarmacked prison.

Devised by a four piece writing team, including Meier and fellow upcoming European auteur Olivier Lorelle (Days of Glory), it's perhaps no wonder how every character in the family is fleshed out. All play an integral role in the group dynamic, how it will soon be tested and, to an extent, shattered. The suffocating mother Marthe who is afraid she'll lose her family to the outside world, the stoic rock father Michel, the typically angsty eldest daughter, the indifferent and paranoid middle child Marion (Madeleine Budd), and, most sympathetically, the young, curious and adventure seeking son Julien (Kacey Mottet Klein). The cast are all pulling their weight here, particularly Haneke's muse Huppert, in an atypically austere maternal role, matched with Dardenne Brothers' regular Olivier Gourmet as a compassionate father reaching the end of his tether.

As the family's proximate relationship intensifies, the eco-parable is verified, and the drone of cars whizzing past their kitchen window becomes unbearable, Meier resorts to feverish melodrama, with a life-threatening consequence. Cinematographer Agnès Godard manages to make the transition from warm open landscape to claustrophobic crazy pretty aimlessly, but the drastic shift in narrative tone removes any sympathy we once had for the barmy quintet, replacing it with utmost frustration. Why can't they leave? What's so special about the house? Not only implausible, the stir-crazy psychological torment in Home's witching hour ends up compromising what would otherwise be an astoundingly accomplished feature debut.

http://www.366movies.com

The tyranny of the motor vehicle

[petesherratt · 6/10 · 13 February 2011]

This is an interesting film made watchable by the family interactions and how they change in response to oppressive circumstances. The acting is good, even the kid is totally convincing. However I was not convinced by the script which literally walls itself in. Symbols are all well and good but if credibility is compromised as a consequence of throwing symbols about then the impact is short circuited. The real achievement of this film is to address the issue of the tyranny the motor car imposes on us and our morally ambivalent relationship with it. After the credits have rolled the family probably get in to the car the father drives to work. The W.H.O. say that 1.2 million people a year are killed on the roads worldwide and that is estimated to rise to 2.3 million by 2020. If that many people were killed in plane crashes how many planes would be in the air? I think not many. The fact is that if all traffic was stopped tomorrow, our society could not function so these deaths are tolerated and facts about deaths caused become like the elephant in the living room. Incidentally 5.4 million people per year are estimated to die from smoking. Since this family smokes like a collective chimney perhaps the director has got a ready made sequel...

never forgoes realism

[thisissubtitledmovies · 8/10 · 10 August 2010]

Setting up home is the aspiration for most people – a place to unwind with a sense of personal security, and privacy from the outside world. But what happens when this peaceful haven is taken away after ten years of happiness? Marthe & Michel, and their three children, live a fairly idyllic lifestyle, with their home situated next to an abandoned highway that they've converted into their personal playground (son Julien uses it as a bicycle race track, they play games of street hockey, whilst their property's space is extended, using the highway to place furniture, a satellite dish and other items), and only a stone's throw away from beautiful countryside. Though the director takes a fair few liberties with his artistic freedom in setting his one up, he never forgoes realism in its execution, whilst he cleverly handles your uncertainty till the very end. DH

A Film With A Deep And Profound Symbology At Its Core.

[JoeKulik · 10/10 · 26 August 2015]

Ursula Meier's Home (2009) is a very well thought out, and very well executed film with much artistic merit.

It is also a very thought provoking film, rooted in the deep and profound symbology at its core. The house in an utterly isolated and desolate location, the once abandoned highway adjacent to it, the now opened highway adjacent to it, the once seemingly happy family, the now seemingly unhappy family, the attempts of the family to "protect" itself from the now opened highway, the "overly educated" middle child Marion, the "sunbathing" oldest child Judith finally abandoning the family, the radio station incessantly broadcasting traffic reports seemingly only about the highway adjacent to the house, and the casual nudity of all the family members except for the mother are just a few of all the interrelated symbolic elements present within a carefully constructed matrix. The interpretive unraveling of this integrated and complex symbology provides much potential fodder for intellectual and artistic analyses for the viewer inclined to traverse the paths of such reflective thinking.

Although the complete explication of all the possible interpretations of this very complex film could consume many pages of text, I would hint at some of the possible paths of interpretation that I myself would traverse by suggesting alternate suitable titles for this film. Such a list of alternate titles might include "The Womb", "The Refuge", "The Failed Escape", "A Prison Of Our Own Making", "The Dysfunctional Family In Disguise", "The Family Home As An Insane Asylum", "Let's Pretend It's Not Real" and "Let's All Pretend That Mommy's Not Crazy".

After viewing this film, a couple of lines of lyrics from an old Eagles song kept surfacing in my mind: "We live our lives in chains, Never knowing that we have the keys that can set us free".

Isabelle Huppert once again delivers an utterly brilliant performance, and once again of a mentally deranged woman of some type. Do these seemingly strange roles find her, or does she actively seek them out? Either way, Huppert obviously has the proclivity and the ability to portray very strange women indeed.

20 Stars !!!

Great insight in EU way of working, the years it takes to built a road

[apointofview · 8/10 · 16 December 2009]

Great insight in EU way of working, the years it takes to built a highway. BUT In the comments i see the movie maker made 1 error: international viewers mostly do not know the way we work in the EU in such cases. If a road, like in this movie, is built, many laws are applicable and even more ways to protest to hold the work up may result in a delay for years. If not all '1000 and one' permits are met, the work has to stop, especially when in the middle of protected nature nearby living area's. The people are no squatters, it is their family home, the children where born there. The parable is great, to be cut off from your existence as you know it, even after years of getting 'warm to the fact this will happen'. This is 1 apart movie, not great, but not small to. Well played, good actors and casting. Different story, deeper meanings in that story. Eight stars ! (I like fast paced movies, ad this is not as fast as the newly built highway which has a big role in it)

Ultimate Crap !!!

[Moviespot · 1/10 · 12 August 2009]

Awful , thin , lacking anything that could make this interesting. silly movie about a family who's hysterical nut-case mother refuses to move to another house despite the appearance of a highway in their front garden. the children have to cross the road to get to school etc..... this film is shockingly lacking any talent involved in film-making.the actors , besides the two youngest kids are extremely amateuristic.Although Huppert convinces as the loony egoist who's will is Law.despite their extreme living conditions. the film ending is so predictable that half way through you already see it coming. to summon: A Total Hangover.one of the worst movies i'v seen.

Road rage

[paul2001sw-1 · 8/10 · 10 October 2010]

A strong element of deadpan farce flows through Usrula Meier 's film 'Home': would anyone really build a motorway between a house and the place where its residents leave their rubbish for collection? They even lose their radio signal, which is replaced by 'Motorway Radio', repeating every seven minutes with inane stories about the road; eventually they barricade themselves into something resembling a nuclear bunker after the holocaust. Yet Meier handles this material with enough poise to make it seem plausible; and her subject family are engaging and fit the plot: working class, slightly dissolute, they had moved to the building site when it had seemed the road would never be completed, trading conventional community for space and freedom, and are wholly unprepared for the end of their extended holiday. I did think that the story flipped somewhat suddenly from a tale of failing normality to one of near psychosis; but the parallels of the literal tale with the stresses of modern life in general are clear, and there are some wonderful moments. Almost everyone depends on the motor car, even those of us who don't drive ourselves; yet with a grim smile, this film makes us question whether we truly know where we're heading.

It's life!

[profoemm · 19 August 2011]

Home. The quite and ordinary life of a family is torn by the opening of an highway just near the door of their house. As the plot goes on we follow the family facing the change this big monster (the highway) brings in the day by day life. The focus is the institution of family, relationship inside and how the change is managed. The director Ursula Meier is extremely accurate in providing details of family situation which grow the feeling of anxiety and claustrophobia. Even the monster is changing along the time as the limitation of the family habits increases. At first the problem is crossing road, then the limitation of their privacy when drivers stuck in traffic watch them in their home, then again pollution and noise. What impressed me much was the attitude the family face this change with. From outside is easy to think cynically to leave the house where the old fashioned life is no possible anymore. But in reality, I think in every real family, this does never happen. So people act patching step after step the ongoing emergency till they found themselves trapped inside without even possibility to breath. Whatever the monster to face is, the director seems to tell us the relation between family and home and moreover the way it works is a bomb ready to explode. The family depicted here is a little weird to say the truth. Sometimes is a normal one but not the one you'd say a 'typical family'. Even if you can say it a western family you can not guess where they live. Sometimes they recall me the Simpson. Sometimes you find yourself to think they hide a secret.

I recommend this movie because it arises many and many questions and really you find yourself wondering about. I think everyone can find their own keys and answers.

Bizarre but still Interesting

[Demonicaura · 8/10 · 11 June 2011]

NOTICE: if you are the type of person who is offended by underage nudity in films then this is definitely not a movie you will want to see.

I saw this movie for the first time about a week ago. Overall it was a wonderful but somewhat bizarre and hard to follow storyline. This is definitely a movie that you will have to pay close attention to. You will be kind of lost if you miss portions since all the scenes roll right into one another. There are numerous scenes in which we see underage nudity. In one scene we see a young male about 9 years of age sitting nude in the bathtub with a 25 year old female. We see a full frontal shot of him naked during this scene along with the breasts of the female. We see him naked again during a water fight. During another scene we see a full frontal shot of young Madeleine Budd when she is giving her clothes to her mother. Putting all that aside I found this movie quite interesting. I am a huge fan of watching movie that are sold in their native languages. This is a wonderful movie for the entire family to watch. Younger children who do not know French might not really understand what is going on because they don't really know to read the subtitles. I took a risk purchasing the movie because of the fact that I had never seen it before. I am glad hat I purchased it because it was interesting, bizarre but still interesting and it is worn watching again.