Un dimanche à la campagne (1984) Reviews

• Like bathing in a soothing warmth

  howard.schumann2003-03-16

  Nothing much happens in Bertrand Tavernier's 1984 film, A Sunday in the Country, but at the end I felt like I had attended a close family gathering and became part of the family. Based on a novel by Pierre Best, an elderly painter of still lifes and historical scenes (Louis Ducreix) invites his family to his French country estate just before World War I. The family takes walks, they talk about dinner, tell each other stories and engage in the mundane occurrences of the day. In the process, the film becomes poetic witness to the enduring strength of family. Beautifully photographed in autumn pastels, Tavernier's film looks like an impressionist painting itself. I felt bathed in soothing warmth that lingered long after the end of the film. An atmosphere of nostalgia and melancholy soon sets in. The artist, Mr. Ladmiral, admittedly finds his son Gonzague (Michel Aumont) a disappointment and prefers his more free-spirited daughter Irene (Sabine Azema). When she shows up full of energy, Ladmiral becomes alive and openly discusses his innermost feelings. He tells Irene that he flirted with Impressionism in his early life, but instead decided to paint what he really felt. It is clear that he is disappointed that he did not follow his first inclination. In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, he tells Irene that he had been dreaming of Moses who died content after seeing the "Promised Land", then asks her, "Did I age too quickly"? As her answer, she lovingly asks him to dance with her. In the final sequence, Ladmiral returns home after seeing his family off on the train. He looks at the still life he has been painting, removes it and replaces it with a blank canvas. It is uncertain if he is now ready to paint in the impressionistic style or has accepted his own limitations and is content with seeing the "Promised Land". The clear light shining through the window signals the latter.

• Wish every day was like Sunday

  WilliamCKH2007-06-12

  I saw this film many years ago and loved it and just rewatched it again, this time, on DVD with Bertrand Tavernier's commentary. I must say that I love it now even more. The two words that permeate throughout his film rhythm and time. It is strange to me that he does not say that impressionism was a major inspiration in the work, in fact he says the contrary. Yet I've noticed many films where the director meant to do something only it was taken very differently by the viewers and I guess this was such a case. Anyway to get back to the film, in hearing Tavernier's commentary, I now realize how musical the whole film is, it's lazy, Sunday tone, then Irene (Azema) coming in like a tornado, then quiet conversations, then someone getting stuck in a tree, then another quiet conversation, then a dance...a series of stop starts that lulls you in its rhythm, but awakens you again with bursts of life and vitality. In speaking of time and the passage of it, Tavernier encapsulates the life of Mr. Lamiral in one Sunday afternoon, and all the bittersweet sadness, through his relationship with his children, grandchildren, maid and himself through his actions and voiceovers made by an all knowing narrator. I feel a sense of pride that Tavernier points out in his commentary the poignant scenes which I was so touched by in the first viewing. The scene where Irene tells herself that her niece would die young, the scene where Irene and her father speak of painting, The narrator supplying profound insights on M. Ladmiral about his indifference to his grandchildren. Gonzague's and his wife's decency, but utter clumsiness, living a life bounded by convention and security. I also learned so much about camera movement through Tavernier. He describes not only the how, but why certain shots are shot they are and you begin to understand why certain scenes provoke certain emotions not only through dialogue and setting, but also how you hear something and see something. One scene where Gonzague and his wife are having an argument and M. Ladmiral comes into the scene but rather than say a word to interrupt, he concludes to himself that it is pointless and leaves the scene without uttering a word. Such a scene tells so much, the relationship of the couple, the father's relationship with the couple, and the father's relationship with himself, all in the frame of a 5 second shot. I'm grateful to M. Tavernier for having created such a beautiful film and added such brilliant insight on the nature of this work.

• A Month Of Sundays ...

  writers_reign2006-03-12

  ... would not exhaust the pleasures to be found in Tavernier's adaptation of the novel by Pierre Bost. Comparisons with Louis Malle's Milou en Mai are probably inevitable and when considered as a pair they remind us of the timelessness of French family life inasmuch as although sixty years divides the time-frames (Milou was set in 1968, this one around 1905) the country itself is eternal as are the people who inhabit it. True in Milou there is perhaps a more extended family and a sexual revolution has been and gone but essentially the two families are virtually interchangeable with their almost infinitesimal internecine rivalries, unspoken guilt feelings etc. The moment when free spirit Irene (Sabine Azema) asks her elderly father to dance with her is at once one of the most joyous and tenderest moments in film history and the ending with the ancient painter, alone for another week with his memories, replaces the canvas he is working on with a blank and sits contemplating it is masterful. One of Tavernier's best, which is saying something.

• The dark side of the sun.

  dbdumonteil2007-07-16

  A lot of people consider it Tavernier's best . An old man lives in the country in a desirable property.He waits for his children's visit .Whereas his son ,Gonzague,who lives a bourgeois life with wife and kids frequently turns up,his daughter Irene , a socialite ,a woman ahead of her time is often too busy in Paris to remember his old papa. On a clear sunny day,they all gather in the father's house .Suddenly the house does not look that much cozy.The novel on which the movie is based is called "Mr Ladmiral Va Bientôt Mourir" (M.Ladmiral is soon going to die)and Death shows beneath the placid surface : a terrifying vision of the old man on his death bed -there is a similar scene in John Huston's last work-;a fleeting souvenir of a picnic in the garden where they used to eat (wild?) strawberries;more prosaically,when the family arrives near the church,they can hear "Nearer to thee ,my God" (the Titanic band's canticle!). The admirable sequence in the Guinguettes displays not only Tavernier's tribute to Auguste Renoir,but also his love for the true masters of the French cinema:Auguste's son Jean ("Une Partie de Campagne") ,Julien Duvivier ("La Belle Equipe") and Jacques Becker ("Casque d'or"). This is a brilliant movie by the man who is perhaps the greatest living French director.His command of the picture is so fascinating that even the frequent voice -overs are not redundant. Like this?Try these....... Make way for tomorrow Leo McCarey 1937 Une Partie de Campagne Jean Renoir 1936 Wild Strawberries Ingmar Bergman 1957 Eglantine Jean Claude Brialy 1971 The dead John Huston 1987

• A painterly portrait of an aging painter and his family

  bandw2008-04-07

  In pre-WWI France Monsieur Ladmiral prepares for the day in his large country house near Paris. It is Sunday, the day his son Gonzague and family frequently visit him. Gonzague arrives by train with his wife and three children - two young sons and a daughter. Monsieur Ladmiral walks to the station to meet them. Well actually he only makes it about half way there when he meets the family walking toward his house. Thus we are introduced to one of the themes - how Ladmiral deals with getting older (in this case by denying that he can't walk as fast as he used to). On this particular Sunday Ladmiral is also treated to a rare visit by his daughter Irène. She arrives by car and her breezy, outgoing personality dominates. The children take to her, but the reactions of the rest of the family are much more complex. Gonzague has been the dutiful son who has done what was expected of him while Irène is clearly a bit of a free spirit. But equally as clear is that Ladmiral favors his daughter for her determination to live life on her own terms and is disappointed that his son has not been more aggressive. It is amazing how much we come to understand the dynamics of this family from observing them during this one day. Typical of the hints we get is Gonzague's comment, in response to the excitement over Irène's car, that "I had children and not a car." By the end you feel that you can extrapolate backward in time to the essential history of this family. Particularly poignant are the musing of the old man himself. He has been a painter of some repute and respect, but feels perhaps that he took too modest a path in his work, that he could have been more experimental and made more significant contributions. Is he wishing that he had been more like Irène than Gonzague, and that is why he fancies his daughter? The pacing is slow and the filming is lush. You are left with a certain wistfulness. This may evoke memories to visits to your own grandparents. The focus in on the personalities and the undercurrents of conflicted feelings that exist in all families.