Comment j'ai tué mon père

The pace, the images, the characters in this film are deliciously meditative...and although universal in its content, very French in its presentation. Not a film for Americans who want an action-packed, easily accessible narrative. But those who enjoy an intelligent exploration of relationships at a deep even profound level will find this movie to their liking.

The basic line sets up the life of a very successful gerontologist, dealing in anti-aging methods, married to a beautiful, compliant young woman and also involved sexually with his attractive assistant. When he receives a letter telling him his father, who has been a doctor in Africa and deserted his family many years ago, has died, we are given a revery from his imagination. In this reflection, his father appears at his elegant home and the rest of the film explores the son's complex relationship and emotions relative to what he believes these might be, should his father actually show up. A very interesting devise...using classic projection and giving us the challenging question "What is real and what is imagined".

The cast is superb...with special kudos to Michael Bouquet and Charles Berling, the leads.

I recently saw "Life As A House"...and while the performances were fine...the movie itself...dealing again with a father-son relationship...was such a mish-mash of extraneous characters, the real focus and profundity were lost in the Hollywood glitter of it all. This Anne Fontaine film keeps the color so wonderfully subdued, almost a sense of black and white, that the visual aspect is moodily effective and appropriate to its theme.

In 1997, Anne Fontaine made an idiosyncratic film named "Nettoyage à Sec" in which a mysterious young man, Loïc shattered the upstart world of a couple of dry cleaners. Miou-Miou acted the woman while Charles Berling was her husband. Four years later, the female filmmaker finds again her main actor for a very similar role and a film which resembles its 1997 companion.

Here, the disruptive element isn't a young man but an elderly one acted by Michel Bouquet in a mind-boggling performance. After many years spent in research in Africa, he unexpectedly resurfaces in France to pay a visit to his sons. Berling is a doctor who has everything to be happy: a private hospital that works well, a lascivious mansion and a lovely spouse (Natacha Régnier) and he even saved from distress his brother whom he hired as his chauffeur. Is this posh universe serendipitous? Bouquet's presence will reveal the other side of this lush scenery as well as many things about his past, Berling's and his brother's. A good proportion of these secrets have something eerie and are likely to explain the current situation.

As soon as Bouquet arrives, Anne Fontaine exudes an unnerving climate and keeps a low-key tonality to better capture a high disquiet. Rather than to deliver banal explanations that would have rushed the film towards miscarriage, she prefers to call upon the viewer's imagination and to let the unsaid prevail to interpret the numerous zones of shadow and ambiguity the characters have deep down inside them. What also cements her talent is that she eschews a good number of easy moments in which the characters' reactions would have been so predictable. Distance is her key word to shoot her characters and she sends away the father and his son without pronouncing in favor of either even if she has an ounce of sympathy at the tail end when they feel lost.

Once again, Michel Bouquet's acute look and ubiquity are to be praised. He just has to pronounce a cue with his hoarse voice to fill one sequence with intensity. Berling and Régnier are up to scratch him. With Marion Vernoux and a few other ones, Anne Fontaine may be the finest French female filmmaker of these last years. Perhaps one will just regret this detail: Bouquet sees his son again when the latter is at the peak of his success and invites the whole community at his home. This trick has been used many times before.

I was very interested to see the previous film of director Anne Fontaine before she did the excellent 'Nathalie'. 'Comment j'au tue mon pere' did not disappoint, although it may not be a easy film for everybody's taste.

Despite the title this is no detective story, and there is almost no physical violence in this movie. It is the world of the French middle-high class, people are polite and talk quiet. A well-doing doctor lives with his wife and his brother when their lives are changed by the arrival - as in a inverse parable - of the prodigal father, the one who left the boys as kids. Not only that the characters cannot re-do the time lost, but they do not seem to even look or express any affection. The emotions behind their cold masks are however not less stronger, with frustration and fear dominating the father-sons interaction.

The movie is very well acted with Michel Bouquet and Charles Berling giving powerful performances in the principal roles. Although the cinematography is a little banal, the movie is to be remembered for the intensity of the hidden conflicts, well brought to the screen.

This is a film whose title i find highly significant. It creates a tension throughout all the action which i find highly integral to the significance of the piece.

The casting, however, i found cliché. The 'rich yet forlorn' wife of Jean-Luc is predictably docile looking. Beautiful she is, yes, and aristocratic in movement, also, but she is exactly what one expects. Equally, Jean-Luc's lover, who is more Mediterranean looking, with more spirit and with a more voluptuous body, is also the archetypal affair. Why, in 2001 are we still type-casting? However, I find Jean-Luc immaculately chosen, with the touch of 'froideur' in his eyes that hints at a depth in the character, and also, an 'un-depth' for it is very difficult to penetrate his often emotionless actions.

Not a film that i would say was beautifully shot...i don't find the photography breathtaking, but it is a perfect french thriller: classy, subtle and psychologically deep.

The last opus of Anne Fontaine is a combination of two influences: Oedipus complex and Nettoyage A Sec (Fontaine's previous film).

What it takes from the Oedipus story is of course the conflictual relationship between Charles Berling (the son) and Michel Bouquet (the father), and how Berling tries to 'kill' his father to affirm his own identity. From Nettoyage A Sec, the film takes his structure: how a seemingly ideal couple (Berling and Regnier) copes with the unexpected intrusion of the father.

If it were just for the acting, How I killed my Father would deserve a 10. Bouquet and Berling share an astounding intimacy on screen which interestingly happened off the set as well (they wrote a book of thoughts together just after the shoot). Regnier is surprisingly convincing in the beautiful up-class wife; what a versatility after her role in the Dreamlife of Angels when she was a young insecure squatter. However there is no special twist in the storyline, like one which made Nettoyage A Sec so disturbing...

To sum up, a good acting piece which failed to deliver in the drama.