Absinthe Recommends: Films

We'll continue with our film recommendations from Absinthe #14:

I Have Loved You So Long

Directed by Phillipe Claudel

France, 2008

The funny thing about guilt is that it often keeps one from doing the right thing.  We put up walls and push people away.  Yet those feelings of guilt might be the impetus we need to reach out and begin reconciliation.  Juliette (Kristen Scott Thomas—in a Francophone role!) finds herself in such a place.  Released after 15 years in prison, she numbly reconnects with her younger sister (Elsa Zylberstein) and begins the slow, humbling process of rebuilding her life.  Abandoned by parents and husband, Juliette only has a sympathetic parole officer and her sister to help bring about what nearly amounts to a resurrection.  Writer/director Claudel creates an emotional tension in all of Thomas’ relationships—even the more casual ones and Thomas gives an appropriately restrained performance throughout. 

Katyn

Directed by Andrzej Wajda

Poland, 2007

Director and co-writer Andrzej Wajda revealed in a Polish TV interview that he was caught between telling “the crime and the lie.”  The crime being the 1940 massacre of over 15,000 Polish army officers—including those who were teachers, architects, bankers, and engineers before the September 1939 invasion—by the Soviets.  Wajda’s own father was executed with the others in the Katyn forest.  The lie was the cover up and denial by the Soviets.  They blamed it on the Nazis who discovered the mass graves and, in an egregious case of the pot calling the clichéd kettle black, used it for their own propaganda. The story focuses on the women who are left widowed with unanswered questions and on the destruction of Polish culture by Stalin.  The film shifts back and forth from the crime to the lie and ends abruptly—like the lives of those soldiers taking a bullet to the back of the head.

Thanks to Absinthe contributor Scot Martin for the film recommendations.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

Last weekend we went to the Detroit Film Theatre to see the French film "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime" (I've Loved You So Long). Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) is released from prison after fifteen years and goes to live with her younger sister Lea with whom she's had no contact during her imprisonment. Juliette attempts to rebuild her life and get a job while her and Lea set out to heal the emotional wounds in their relationship.

Directed by first time writer-director Philippe Claudel, the film subtly builds to a powerful conclusion and there were few dry eyes in the theatre at film's end.

Well-acted, with a fine script and solid direction, see it if you get the opportunity.