Daddy Nostalgie

Dirk Bogarde is wonderful in his last film. Everything we remember from the past is here: the laconic smile, the raised eyebrow that seems to say Oh, really?, the perfect timing. Add to these the lassitude that comes to those whose hearts are functioning far below standard--the story starts just after his heart surgery. Jane Birkin is playing a character for once whose life is not a caricature, as it was in too many of her films--you don't remember the Gainsbourg years when you see her here. Odette Laure as the mother is new to me, but she plays very well indeed; she is the watchful manager of her husband's declining resources.

The use of flashbacks slows the film down, makes it less tense, but that is a minor cavil. The final scenes, with the exasperation of the beginning gone, are terribly poignant: the setting sun remark from Caroline, Daddy's comments on the management of pain as they stand in the garden, then the discussion of love in the car. Here the cinema goes as far as it can in expressing regret and acceptance.

Daddy Nostalgie centers its attention on Jane Birkin's character, Caroline, who is a successful screenwriter based in Paris. As the story opens, she receives a call from her mother explaining that her father is in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. Tony Russell, her father, played by Dirk Bogarde in his final role, was a successful international salesman who had to spend much of his career traveling abroad. Caroline, ever the dutiful daughter, then travels to the Cote d'Azur to be by her parents' side during this family crisis. During this time, Caroline finally has a chance to get to know her father for what might be the first time.

While most films tend to gloss over the more complex and lasting aspects of familial relationships, this film focuses on them. In life, every action is steeped in history, and every action carries with it consequences for good and/or for ill. This film is true to that reality. Daddy Nostalgie examines how people live with the consequences of their actions, how those consequences often echo through the generations, and how we can both love and hate someone at the same time.

What makes this film superior is how the director is able to show the emotional complexity of the characters. They are forced to confront many opposites, such as love and hate, life and death, marriage and divorce. While struggling to remain calm on the surface, each character must try to suppress the emotions being churned up within. Tavernier is able to show how everyone is successful, but only to a point, of maintaining such a false front. All are trying to hide their feelings from the others, but also from themselves. And it is why and how they maintain these facades that make this film both interesting and bittersweet.

Daddy Nostalgie looked promising right from the outset. A film by Bertrand Tavernier (director of the gentle, beautiful 'Sunday in the Country') starring Jane Birkin (so superb in La Belle Noiseuse) and Dirk Bogarde (who stole the show from Gielgud and Burstyn in Providence... no mean feat at all) - it was hard to imagine this being anything other than a quality film.

And yet, even I was surprised by how good it was. So few films allow you to truly empathise with the characters, but this movie is an exception. You really feel for Birkin's character, as you see the hurt she still feels from being ignored as a child. The best scenes are those between her and her father - he, trying to make the most of his last days, and she, trying to make the most of her last days with him. Even the crabby mother is given a degree of character development as the film moves on, but in the end she takes a back seat to the performance of the two superb lead actors.

A sensitive, mature film with truly beautiful cinematography, this is one that will surely be appreciated by anyone who has had to deal with family relationships at any stage in their life.

This touching film bears up to repeated viewings for its subtlety and insight. I agree with all of the comments discussed by the two previous reviewers, Victoria and Les Halles.

By focussing on the "non-action" of daily life and daily conversation, Tavernier appears to present a nothing of a film, but in reality has captured something valuable and ephemeral -- the silent dialogue between a husband and wife after a long marriage and the discovery of love between a father and daughter, all of whom have to deal in their own way with his impending death.

The use as a coda of the haunting song "These foolish things remind me of you" as sung by Jane Birkin in her breathless voice has never been more apt. It should be noted from the credits that Tavernier dedicated this film to another cinema genius Michael Powell (of the team Powell & Pressberger). Like Powell, Dirk Bogarde, both in the film and in real life, was very English, but cosmopolitan in intellect and cultural tastes. These characteristics are brought out in Bogarde's portrayal and in Birkin's flashbacks of her early remembrances. The acting and inter-action of the three principals, Bogarde, Birkin and Laure, is so subtle as to not appear as such, again a tribute to their experience and rapport with the director.

For someone who has faced the recent death of a loved one, this film rings true, and the refrain from the song takes on a new dimension, not intended by the original lyricist.

*****Five stars for hitting its emotional target..

I second Victoria's comments. A profoundly moving film.

Caroline loves her father and craves his attention, but he has lived a self-indulgent life and never gave her the time and affection she needed. Now, as time is running out, they both strive to heal their relationship.

A superbly successful investigation of the relationship between a woman and her father, that both analyzes their feelings and narrates their efforts to reach each other, and which ends in a timeless, transcendental moment capturing the bittersweet and ephemeral nature of life.

For me,as a man, the film gave insight into the father/daughter relationship; I notice that young women gave this film a higher rating than other groups.

Also, one of the few English language films of Jane Birkin widely available in the USA, along with Dust and Kung Fu Master. A uniquely sensitive actress with a large body of work in French cinema.