Cet été-là

Does not add much insight to Grey Gardens, simply adds more Big and Little Edie, of whom I can't get enough. They are extremely entertaining in this movie, arguing and singing and explaining life. If you enjoyed both Grey Gardens docs and the biopic, you will enjoy this.

This is a magnificent memory piece about a time and place that no longer exists...for good or ill. The Hamptons were being discovered, soon to be over-whelmed with tourists drawn to rub shoulders with the very people portrayed in the film. Their reality was unique and not something anyone could just enter.

While primarily centered on the eccentric Beale's, cultural icons Big Edie and Little Edie, others floating around are Warhol, Capote, Peter Beard, Aristotle and Jackie Onassis, all defy what we assumed or knew about them from the media. The film is an aching meditation on change and loss, treating everyone with enormous compassion, which we often don't necessarily attribute to this set of people.

Artfully assembled, the opening Prologue about Peter Beard's artistry is hard to leave, but the unedited footage of 16mm "home movies" that was to be later assembled by Beard and Lee Radziwill--who is stunning in her kind acceptance of her Aunt and Cousin's "reality," as is Beard--is the heart of the film.

The project was abandoned, and Beard discovering the footage after the fame of "Gray Gardens", simply runs four undiscovered reels without any editing. It's an extension of his techniques as a photographic collage artist. The jarring occasional intrusion of "normal," represented by Building Code inspectors, electricians, plumbers and Health Department personnel really highlights how rarified this group of celebrities and artists were. It recalls a period, for those who lived through it, that's realized casually but vividly; and, along with the creators, you mourn the loss and passing of an era.

Life in Montauk, a hamlet of Long Island, circa 1972, as photographer Peter Beard and friend Lee Radziwill plan a documentary on Lee's eccentric aunt, Edith Bouvier Beale of East Hampton, and her cat-loving daughter "Little Edie". Home-movie footage of Lee's sister, Jackie Onassis and her friends (including Andy Warhol and members of his Factory, and Truman Capote) will be of great interest for celebrity-watchers, though the real drawing-card of "That Summer" is the Beales and the story behind the celebrated 1975 documentary "Grey Gardens". Swedish-Danish-US co-production for Sundance Selects; funny and sad, in equal measure. ** from ****

Narcissism run riot and for collectors of celebrity gossip and curios only. "That Summer" is something of a companion piece to "Grey Gardens" featuring some of the same characters, (the Beales, mostly), but it's really nothing more than the home-movies of Peter Beard, whose friends included Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, Truman Capote. Andy Warhol etc. and it's full of the indolent doodlings of the super-rich. These people are so cut off from the real world they may as well be living on Mars. What's more, the cheap home-movie look of the picture is positively headache-inducing at times and like "Grey Gardens", there's something ghoulish about it but at least "Grey Gardens" felt like a real film, despite being highly intrusive. This is more like a vanity project gone wrong; a road-kill of a movie if there ever was one.

Least interesting: Peter Beard, his collages, photographs, house and the quick footage in the beginning of his celebrity pals.

Most interesting: Big and Little Edie in all their time-capsule glory, and Lee Bouvier Radziwell's visits with them at Grey Gardens.

That Summer is comprised of mostly archival footage, interspersed with Beard's reminiscences and images. The loose premise of the early footage was to capture something of the old Hamptons, before it was saturated with the super wealthy. Lee, Beard and the Maysles fall into the wormhole of the Beales's lives, and the women's eccentricities end up being more fascinating than anything else.

If you are curious about what inspired the Maysles to make their film, this is definitely worth watching. Lee is a lovely presence who is kind to and appreciative of her relatives.