WHAT: I haven't seen Home since 2009, when it was one of my very favorite films of the San Francisco International Film Festival that year. It would surely have appeared in the upper half of my Top Ten List that year's-end as well, except that I was restricting that list to films that found week-long commercial releases in the Bay Area; I don't believe Home has ever had another local public screening. Not until tonight.
Here's an excerpt from my own review written a little more than four years ago:
A family has fled urban living to establish a free-spirited life in a house mere feet off the shoulder of the highway. We're introduced to them first in a manic night hockey game shot (by cinematographer Agnes Godard) very tightly on the actors. It's the consistency of their character arcs that holds the film together throughout drastic changes in their setting and in tone; sometimes it feels like a comedy, other times drama, action thriller, or even horror.WHERE/WHEN: Screens tonight at the Pacific Film Archive at approximately 8:30 PM, after a presentation by Agnès Godard that begins at 7.
WHY: The PFA begins not only its Dancing with Light: The Cinematography of Agnès Godard series, but its entire summer schedule with tonight's screening. Godard we be on hand tonight and at four more screenings this weekend, showing and discussing four more films directed by Meier, by Erick Zonca, and by her most consistent collaborator Claire Denis. Two more Denis/Godard films round out the program after the cinematographer departs town.
Of the PFA series arriving later this summer, the one with the most relevance to this Godard selection is the extensive Jacques Demy retrospective being held in July and August. Three films made about Demy by the director's widow Agnès Varda will screen as part of this series, and for the best-known one of those, Jacquot, Godard was one of three cinematographers.
HOW: 35mm print following Agnès Godard's "behind the scenes of the art of cinematography in a talk followed by a Q&A with the audience."
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Brian: You're right, Home never got a release in the Bay Area, after a somewhat mixed review in the New York Times, Several SFIFF fans raved about it so I finally caught up with on Canadian Tv, not the best way to see. Regardless, I found it overly allegorical.
ReplyDeleteWhat was it an allegory for, in your view?
ReplyDeleteThe house stood for something more than this particular family's abode.I did like the use,
ReplyDeletehowever, of the song from Cukor's Wild Is The Wind during the closing credits.
Perhaps it did, but what in particular did you think it stood for? Don't worry about spoilers- I've seen it and this comment thread is scrolling down rapidly.
ReplyDeleteI did think the selections of music for the film were particularly well-suited.