Je rentre à la maison

I like to think of myself as a movie buff, but I'm not. I am a novice, in training. I had never heard of Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira but it turns out he is 93 years old, still active and has therefore been making films for most of the era of "talkie" cinema. So, "I'm Going Home". This is a film I would never have dreamed of going to see. I ended up at the cinema by default without realising that it would change my view on a lot of things and make me feel better without realising that I felt down.

I had no idea or preconceptions of what this would be like. The only person I was familiar with was John Malkovich (sp?) I'll get back to him later.

The film starts off with a play, and it's a play I would love to see. The audience (in the film) watching the play are enjoying it immensely and it is obvious that Gilbert Valence (the wonderful wonderful Michel Piccoli)is a well known stage actor, much loved by his French audience. Valence comes off stage to huge applause but then receives the worst kind of life-changing news.

Cuts to "some time later" We hear no dialogue from him until we see him in his next play. This is clever- unless he is on the stage, we only see him from an outsider's point of view. He is in a bar and we can see him talking and ordering but all we can hear is the white noise of Parisian traffic. And then vice-versa so for a while, he is always on the other side of the window to us.

He meets his agent who is a partonising, unsympathetic character. Valence doesn't understand why he keeps offering him roles he would never take. Valence feels out of sorts with society. His world has been reduced and he is surrounded by people he doesn't understand and whom in turn, don't understand him.

Enter John Malkovich. He is John Crawford a director of a Franco/American production company who desperately needs Valence to be in his new version of Ulysses (James Joyce you idiot!) (no, I've never read it either). His opening speech to Valence is a text book example of tactlessness and I wonder if M. de Oliveria has often found himself on the receivng end of the same, ageist treatment

My favourite scene is when Valence is trying his absolute hardest to get the part right. Malkovich is trying to keep his cool but is obviously getting infuriated with this poor frenchman who is trying to read an English-speaking part in an Irish accent (which he has three days to prepare for). The scene consists of a close-up of Malkovich's face as he winces and squirms, looks hopeful then despairs again, whilst we listen to the sound of Valence doing his best in a part that he wasn't born to play.

The film is full of so much apart from the story line and gives much food for thought on leaving the cinema. Is he really so out of sorts with the world? How can he be, when his grandson adores him completely and young girls find him very attractive (a fact that he finds hard to deal with)? Surely it is the bad side of modern society that he can't cope with in the same way the rest of us can barely cope either?

There are also shots in this picture that would make Martin Scorsese drool. I won't bother describing any because that never works, but if I noticed them, they must be good!

I probably make it sound like a melancholy old-duffer movie but it isn't. The dialogue is sharp and often very-funny, there are nice little sub-plots and elegant touches such as people drinking in sync with each other except for Valence. Subtle stuff that you have to watch out for.

I won't give the (abrupt, but for a reason) ending away but the way the title is used- it's something we can all relate to and wish we done ourselves!

"I'm Going Home" - a heady subtitled French character study and contemplation which focuses on a bereaved and aging thespian, Valence (Piccoli) - consumes huge chunks of time as we watch the protag perform on stage, buy shoes, get mugged, get made up for a movie, flub his lines, etc. Deneuve and Malkovich are on screen for a heartbeat and the whole messy death of his family thing is skipped over in deference to the lengthy scenes. I was surprised when the film abruptly ended with no climax, no denouement, and no warning...just poof, credits rolling. The bottom line here is this is not much of a movie by the standards of ordinary filmgoers. However, it is fodder for cinematic devotees, critics and industry people, pedants and dilettantes, etc. If you care about such trivia as the director was 90+ years of age, then you may want to give this film a look. If you just want entertainment, think twice. (B)

Note: Being surprised when the film ended is a good thing. That meant I was sufficiently engrossed as to not be watching the clock. For what it's worth and it's not much, I enjoyed this film a lot.

Manuel de Oliveira is the film director of the details. The camera is always very slow with him and much concentrated on visual details, immobile images and dialogues. Each one of these however, has its meaning sometimes poetic and contributes to introduce the spectator deeply into the atmosphere of the story. Remember for instance the scene when the old actor, after having bought and put on a pair of new yellow shoes that he liked very much, is talking to someone else at a café and while the dialogue goes on we almost never see his face since the camera focuses his feet all the time and the movements he makes with his shoes like an element of his personality. This is the story of an old actor at the end of his career still trying to work after the violent death of his wife, daughter and son-in-law in a road accident that left him in charge of his little grandson. Michel Piccoli does a great job in the role of the aging actor and we can feel all along the movie the feelings that take place in his mind on the one hand in his difficult relationship with his agent about what the latter tries to demand from him and on the other hand in his tender relationship with his grandson at home though they don't see much of each other due to to their divergent hours. A movie really worth to be seen.

I'm Going Home [Je rentre à la maison (2001)] is a

masterpiece from Manoel de Oliveira. This film is quiet,

fascinating, and truly memorable. de Oliveira has chosen

the aging, brilliant French actor Michel Piccoli to portray an

aging, brilliant French actor. The combination of skilled

director and skilled actor results in an almost perfect film.

The plot is basic and could be summarized in a paragraph.

What makes this movie a masterpiece is the manner in which

de Oliveira sets up each scene so that it is an organic

entity--linked to the scenes before and after it, but nonetheless

able to stand on its own. Each scene is, in fact, a small

masterpiece.

As an example, Piccoli's character is seated in front of the

mirror, while a makeup artist carefully, skillfully, and

professionally adds makeup. The scene is shot as if

through the mirror, so Piccoli and the makeup person are

looking at us to check the results. A man stands quietly in

the background. At first we don't understand why he is there.

Then, the makeup artists pauses, and the man begins to

place a wig on Piccoli's head. All three of these people are

portrayed as experienced, capable, and clearly expert at what

they do. They work quietly and efficiently in a manner

expected of people who have done this before, and will do it

again. The man steps back, the makeup person begins to

add a moustache, and, by the end of the scene, Piccoli's

appearance is transformed. A gem!

Think of this movie as if you were at an exhibition of Vermeer

paintings. You move from painting to painting. Most of the

works are small, often just one or two persons are portrayed,

and the lighting and composition are perfect. Each painting

is a masterpiece, and together they create a brilliant exhibition.

This is "I'm Going Home."

If you want bright colors, action, large expanses of flesh,

multiple characters, and constant movement, find an

exhibition of paintings by Rubens. Perhaps equally enjoyable,

but not Vermeer, and not de Oliveira.

This is another low-key yet compelling latter-day offering from the indefatigable Portuguese film-maker; given that it deals with a famous but ageing actor (Michel Piccoli once again) who decides to give up his boots, it was probably meant as such by Oliveira himself – though he's still going strong seven years later, having not only made some half-a-dozen other films in the interim but, at nearly 100, has two more productions already lined up for 2009!

The plot starts off with Piccoli and his theater troupe (including a nice cameo by Catherine Deneuve) performing a Eugene Ionesco play about a mad king (with Piccoli being very funny at playing a doddering and dreamy fool), while later on they also put on Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Soon after the initial performance, however, Piccoli learns that his wife, daughter and son-in-law have all been killed in a traffic accident; this is a wonderfully directed sequence as the people who have come to inform Piccoli of the tragic events are forced to wait for the play to finish before intervening and, consequently, are seen pacing nervously backstage as the actors' voices boom in the distance spouting droll lines concerning the impending death of Piccoli's own character. As a result of the accident, the elderly actor is left with a young grandson solely in his care; though the two can't afford to spend a lot of time together – due to the nature of Piccoli's work and the boy's own schooling – they display genuine affection for each other.

The repetition of certain scenes – Piccoli watching the child leaving for school or going to a café (this, then, becomes a nice running gag involving another habitual client who likes to sit at the very same table as the protagonist) – may be a nod to Luis Bunuel's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962), meant as a reflection on the way one's life tends to become a series of routine chores. Having mentioned the Spanish surrealist master, as in Oliveira's later direct homage to him – BELLE TOUJOURS (2006), which I've just watched – the film has several bits showing Piccoli just walking around town; these don't merely serve to give us scenic views of the city, but also to crystallize Piccoli's bemused character: however, we're not spared the ugliness either, illustrated by the incident where one night he's held-up by a junkie and deprived of his beloved newly-purchased yellow shoes (which, in the preceding sequence, ostensibly depicting a conversation between Piccoli and his over-eager agent, had themselves amusingly been the 'protagonists')!

The second half of the picture involves the flow of TV and movie work which Piccoli's agent tries to set up for him: they immediately clash over an action-packed TV series (where the actor's asked to play a dupe for a much younger woman!), but does accept the proposal of a renowned American film director (John Malkovich, another past alumnus of Oliveria's) to take a small role in a new rendition of James Joyce's "Ulysses" – for the record, I own Joseph Strick's 1967 film adaptation myself but have yet to check it out. Still, their collaboration (Malkovich had initially felt privileged in obtaining the services of such a distinguished actor) isn't a felicitous one: Piccoli has difficulty in both remembering and fluently delivering the heavy-going English prose, while Malkovich proves an exacting director – insisting on a rigorous fidelity to Joyce's text. Tired of the whole set-up, Piccoli quits with the soft-spoken yet unequivocal interjection of "Je rentre a' la maison" (I'm going home), and staggers out onto the streets of Paris still 'in character' and period costume (baffling passers-by and the patrons at a pub no end); when Piccoli arrives at the house, he even ignores the grandson's presence in the yard and goes straight up to his room. Had this been Oliveira's last film, it would have been a wonderful tribute to the actor's profession and an insightful reflection on old age and approaching death but, as I said before, the ceaseless Portuguese director still had (indeed has) other aces up his sleeve