Olivier Assayas' gorgeous film Summer Hours (2008) follows three siblings as they deliberate whether to keep their childhood home after their mother passes away. The mother, an avid collector and supporter of her uncle who was an acclaimed painter, constructed a house with art, atmosphere, and room after room filled with flowers in vases. The garden is leafy and impressionistic; the interiors embody a shabby gentility.
Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jeremie Renier star as the siblings torn between clinging to the rich family history their mother cultivated or forsaking their childhood utopia as their careers take them from China to San Francisco. Each one is emotionally attached to some object in the house, whether it is a platter shaped like a leaf or an assortment of wooden hands. For an interior decorator or collector of art and antiques, this film is an aesthetics dream, visually satisfying us frame after sunlit frame.
Assayas' proved his unprecedented ability at capturing everyday life in his dinner scene in Irma Vep (1996) (where a Hong Kong actress eats baguette while Luna's cover of "Bonnie and Clyde" plays in the background) and in Summer Hours the camera languidly strolls throughout rooms and gardens without ever losing it's visual or narrative power. Like a Monet painting it asks for your attention as it blooms with life and beauty.
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