The Truth (2019)
(La vérité)
Country: FR/JAP/SW
Technical: col 106m
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Manon Clavel
Synopsis:
A grande dame of French cinema is visited by her semi-estranged daughter and her family on the occasion of the publication of her memoirs, and her completion of a film based around the idea of a mother who never ages. The star's longsuffering PPS walks out to be with his family, and the daughter reluctantly assumes his duties.
Review:
Cleverly constructed around Deneuve's own aged star persona, as one of those vain, capricious, insensitive, impeccably French women who have never really considered anyone else's feelings, Koreeda's first foreign-language feature explores the nature of truth in parental relationships and in different approaches to the actor's craft. The skeleton rattling around this particular closet is a former friend of the family and mother-figure to the daughter, who was personally and professionally betrayed by the mother. It's a gentle affair, with few fireworks, in spite of the many unminced words exchanged, and it ends somewhat anticlimactically on another indulged caprice. A line that gets repeated in the course of the film ('On ne peut pas se fier à la mémoire') speaks to the ability of characters to reinvent their past, which can have curative as well as devious applications. A film of many layers, which makes room for its minor characters as well.
(La vérité)
Country: FR/JAP/SW
Technical: col 106m
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Manon Clavel
Synopsis:
A grande dame of French cinema is visited by her semi-estranged daughter and her family on the occasion of the publication of her memoirs, and her completion of a film based around the idea of a mother who never ages. The star's longsuffering PPS walks out to be with his family, and the daughter reluctantly assumes his duties.
Review:
Cleverly constructed around Deneuve's own aged star persona, as one of those vain, capricious, insensitive, impeccably French women who have never really considered anyone else's feelings, Koreeda's first foreign-language feature explores the nature of truth in parental relationships and in different approaches to the actor's craft. The skeleton rattling around this particular closet is a former friend of the family and mother-figure to the daughter, who was personally and professionally betrayed by the mother. It's a gentle affair, with few fireworks, in spite of the many unminced words exchanged, and it ends somewhat anticlimactically on another indulged caprice. A line that gets repeated in the course of the film ('On ne peut pas se fier à la mémoire') speaks to the ability of characters to reinvent their past, which can have curative as well as devious applications. A film of many layers, which makes room for its minor characters as well.
(La vérité)
Country: FR/JAP/SW
Technical: col 106m
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Manon Clavel
Synopsis:
A grande dame of French cinema is visited by her semi-estranged daughter and her family on the occasion of the publication of her memoirs, and her completion of a film based around the idea of a mother who never ages. The star's longsuffering PPS walks out to be with his family, and the daughter reluctantly assumes his duties.
Review:
Cleverly constructed around Deneuve's own aged star persona, as one of those vain, capricious, insensitive, impeccably French women who have never really considered anyone else's feelings, Koreeda's first foreign-language feature explores the nature of truth in parental relationships and in different approaches to the actor's craft. The skeleton rattling around this particular closet is a former friend of the family and mother-figure to the daughter, who was personally and professionally betrayed by the mother. It's a gentle affair, with few fireworks, in spite of the many unminced words exchanged, and it ends somewhat anticlimactically on another indulged caprice. A line that gets repeated in the course of the film ('On ne peut pas se fier à la mémoire') speaks to the ability of characters to reinvent their past, which can have curative as well as devious applications. A film of many layers, which makes room for its minor characters as well.