After years of teaching literature to indifferent high school students, Germain (Fabrice Luchini, The Women on the 6th Floor) laments to his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas, Bel Ami) that his latest class is the worst he has ever taught. Only Claude (Ernst Umhauer, The Monk) approaches his writing tasks with enthusiasm, relating his experiences inside the home of classmate Rapha (first-timer Bastien Ughetto) and his parents (The Round-Up’s Denis Ménochet and Essential Killing’s Emmanuelle Seigner); however, the increasingly intrusive nature of Claude’s essays gives Germain cause for concern.
Inspiration and apathy anchor François Ozon’s In the House (Dans la maison) in equal measure, with the lead characters plagued by both. A failed writer beleaguered by his boring job finds stimulus in the resourcefulness of a new protégé, just as an imaginative outsider arrests his increasingly dispirited state by insinuating himself into the lives of others – and documenting the outcome. Their actions are far from innocent, being motivated by their own flaws. The repercussions incite a conscious examination of manipulation and creative control.
Other dichotomies are exposed in this playful, provocative adaptation of Juan Mayorga’s play, The Boy in the Last Row. Like the prolific Ozon’s equally voyeuristic Swimming Pool, the film probes the chasm between perception and reality as his dual – and sometimes duelling – protagonists not only construct and obscure their own stories, but find themselves pawns in each other’s machinations.
Assumptions and authenticity are challenged, primarily in the representations that furnish Claude’s pages. The truth proves intangible, with its inevitable elusiveness the crux of the complex narrative.
In his 13th feature, Ozon utilises both extremes of his eclectic career, lurching from the crisp, calculating tone of his thrillers and dramas (Criminal Lovers, Under the Sand) to the lightly comic mood of his farces (8 femmes, Potiche). Here, his distinctive style flits between these two extremes: reserved yet intense when conveying the broader tale; tinged with satire when constructing the story-within-the-story.
While each of Ozon’s decisions embodies the feature’s themes of subversion and duplicity, the combined result can’t quite find a comfortable equilibrium. Transitions prove jarring, and the film’s revelations are too obvious despite a pervasive climate of unease. The perfectly-cast Luchini and Umhauer deftly navigate the divide; however their supports – the under-used Scott Thomas included – suffer mixed fortunes. In the House may intrigue with its mystery and distract with its meta-structure, but it is unable to truly engage.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
In the House (Dans la maison)
Director: François Ozon
France, 2012, 105 min
Alliance Française French Film Festival
www.affrenchfilmfestival.org
Sydney: 5 – 24 March
Melbourne: 6 – 24 March
Canberra: 7 – 26 March
Brisbane: 14 March – 4 April
Adelaide: 19 March – 7 April
Perth: 19 March – 7 April
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