French director Arnaud Desplechin’s latest film, “Un Conte de Noel” (“A Christmas Tale”) on the surface looks to be a formulaic family Holiday drama, but is actually something else entirely. Desplechin talked with the New York Times about the films that influenced this unique work and why he decided to turn the Holiday day genre on its head.
In reference to Ingmar Bergman’s autobiographical “Fanny and Alexander,” which contains one of the most memorable Christmas gatherings in film, Desplechin said, “Its a film I know by heart.” Other family films he listed as influential were John Huston’s “The Dead,” an adaptation of the James Joyce story, and even the recent Wes Anderson film about the ultimate dysfunctional family, “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
He also expressed his thoughts about the predictability of the genre, and why he wanted to avoid it. “It’s always the same story. Everyone will be gathered in the house, and after 1 hour and 10 minutes, someone will say, ‘Actually, I’m gay,’ and the mother will say, ‘By the way, my son, I never loved you.'” In Desplechin’s mind, it seemed more interesting to cut off the fat, and bypass the formalities. “The confession is supposed to be the climax, but it’s always disappointing. The son waits to tell everyone he’s gay, but come on, we’ve already figured that out. I thought it would be nice to have a family where everyone is so harsh that all the forbidden things are said at the beginning, and then we can see where it goes from there.”
Judging from our initial thoughts of the film, it appears no family member is pulling punches in Desplechin’s film. In one scene the estranged son asked his mother, who is dying of cancer, “Still don’t love me?” to which she replies, “I never did.” It stars Catherine Deneuve as the vicious mother, Mathieu Amalric as the insufferably obnoxious black sheep son returning after five years absence and Anne Consigny as the resentful sister (both of them starred together in “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly”). It is due out May 21st but his past works “L’aimee” and “La Vie des Morts” are also screening this week at the IFC center in New York.
Here’s the trailer.