Yule Laugh, Yule Cry, Yule Hurl
A Christmas Tale (2008)
directed by Arnaud Desplechin
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
I’m unprepared for the day I re-watch the Antoine Doinel films and find them something less than I remember, and I say that because those movies meant a lot to me, and the modern sentimental French love story seems silly in light of A Christmas Tale. Melodrama existed before Truffaut, of course, but he didn’t jettison the genre as completely as his contemporaries, and presumably Desplechin aspires to a similar kind-hearted cynicism about the entanglements and complications of family and romance. But it’s such a parody here, what with men nobly sharing their wives with old friends and children wandering from one adult situation to the next with nothing on their minds but the knowing precociousness that French kids are famous for.
The profoundest observation is not on life or death, but rather a small insight into the lucky few who skate past the worst of so much day-to-day malaise with the luck of the charmed and charming. “Don’t act beyond your capacity to repair,” Mathieu Amalric tells his sister, knowing that he himself is a man (and a face) with a limitless reserve of goodwill. His sister is not, and she hates him for it, and it’s the one reconciliation the season can’t inspire.
directed by Arnaud Desplechin
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
I’m unprepared for the day I re-watch the Antoine Doinel films and find them something less than I remember, and I say that because those movies meant a lot to me, and the modern sentimental French love story seems silly in light of A Christmas Tale. Melodrama existed before Truffaut, of course, but he didn’t jettison the genre as completely as his contemporaries, and presumably Desplechin aspires to a similar kind-hearted cynicism about the entanglements and complications of family and romance. But it’s such a parody here, what with men nobly sharing their wives with old friends and children wandering from one adult situation to the next with nothing on their minds but the knowing precociousness that French kids are famous for.
The profoundest observation is not on life or death, but rather a small insight into the lucky few who skate past the worst of so much day-to-day malaise with the luck of the charmed and charming. “Don’t act beyond your capacity to repair,” Mathieu Amalric tells his sister, knowing that he himself is a man (and a face) with a limitless reserve of goodwill. His sister is not, and she hates him for it, and it’s the one reconciliation the season can’t inspire.
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