There is a recognizable tradition of arthouse home invasion movies, one that includes Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Theorem” or more recently, 2013 Cannes Competition entry “Borgman.” Chilean helmers Alicia Scherson and Cristián Jiménez collaborate in their riff on this sub-genre with the beguiling “Family Life,” part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. “Family Life” is of a slightly different, more grounded breed to the aforementioned films, as the filmmakers dress their narrative of home disruption in the skin of the quirky dramedy — a mode more apt to be palatable to Park City audiences. “Family Life,” like the work of fellow Chilean and Sundance infiltrator Sebastián Silva, is by turns strange, caustic and most importantly funny, with a standout lead performance by Jorge Becker.
In “Family Life,” a bourgeois nuclear family — professor Bruno (Cristián Carvajal), his wife Consuelo (Blanca Lewin) and their young daughter Sofi (Adara Casassus) — task a distant friend of the family, Martín (Becker), to housesit when they leave on a trip to France. Bruno only recently reencountered the young man at his father’s funeral, extending the position as an act of pity (at this juncture, it is already evident a class criticism is being laced throughout the picture). Left to his own devices, Martín immediately sets out breaking the spoken rules of the household — no smoking indoors, for example — and even some implied ones, such as to not leave garbage lying around, drastically rearrange the furniture or urinate in the courtyard.
The comic scenario builds as the aberrant house-sitter strikes up a romantic relationship with a young woman, Pachi (Gabriela Arancibia), ultimately selling himself as a family man whose wife and daughter recently left him. The case of mistaken identity is an all-too-familiar setup for a comedy, but one which Scherson and Jiménez reanimate with some smart formal choices including an unpredictable jazz-inflected score by composers Caroline Chaspoul and Eduardo Henríquez. These aural compositions, which cultivate a sense of anxiety and uncertainty, are a productive contrast to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which fences in Martín as he grieves in an unpredictable fashion. Other aesthetic patterns tip towards affectation, most noticeably the repeated circular pans (at least three by my count) that circumscribe a home space that has already been defined.
Both the comedic and dramatic heavy lifting is assigned to Becker in his performance as Martín, and the actor more than rises to the occasion. At the very least, it is a coup of casting and presence. Becker, dressed in black until he begins to take on the persona of Bruno, is the perfect balance of memorably handsome and sad—a fixating character but someone who is clearly a shadow of his potential. Moreover, the actor is counted upon to act out Martín’s mourning without it ever being openly discussed. The most direct insight into Martín’s demons is gleaned from his practice of scanning family photos, with the substance of his relationship to his younger self and his father left unclear. When Bruno and Consuelo debate their impressions of Martín early in the film — he says “weird as hell,” she insists “melancholic” — they are in fact describing the boundaries that Becker navigates to great success: expertly measured hangdog deadpan and sad sack-ery.
With a lean runtime of 80 minutes, “Family Life” doesn’t overstay its welcome — quite the opposite, in fact, as the film ends on an ambiguous note and leaves its main thread involving the relationship between Martín and Pachi hanging. Considering the way in which every scene is permeated by unspoken grief and an ever-tightening noose of dishonesty, the conclusion is not so much a cop-out but that any other resolution would seem too dramatic, too tidy. More importantly, the film sustains its comedic energy; Pachi enters the narrative just as Martín’s solo antics begin to lose their novelty, and the romantic thread is severed by the return of the homeowners just as it threatens to turn cliché. In these last moments the audience is finally able to share in the family’s horror at the destructive makeover of their dwelling, providing at least some measure of catharsis.
Admittedly, this writer isn’t familiar with the individual work of either Alicia Scherson and Cristián Jiménez; besides a few obvious names (Pablo Larrain and Patricio Guzmán, with Sebastián Lelio poised to break out at this year’s Berlinale), Chilean cinema on the whole is underserved by the festival circuit. “Family Life” is evidence that, even on a smaller scale, Chile is a hotbed of talent behind and in front of the camera, just like the burgeoning film industries in Argentina and Brazil. If the improvisation and whimsy of “Family Life” doesn’t result in a great deal of attention for the duo of Scherson and Jiménez — it is perhaps a degree too modest to read as a true breakout, though nonetheless deserving of an adventurous distributor — one hopes that the filmmakers will continue to nurture their collaboration and the weird energy it generates. [B+]
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