Je rentre à la maison
Prog’s „favorite films of the decade“ prompted me to watch this film. With so incredibly many movies from this – our – decade, I wanted to know why he would pick precisely those ones. I, for instance, would have chosen a completely different set of films for my own decade list, which makes this particular list even more fascinating. In many ways I think that „Je rentre à la maison“ is a weird choice.
At the Berlinale this year, Oliveira showed a 60 minute long film and this short running time looked incredibly intriguing to me. „Je rentre à la maison“ is quite a bit longer, but it feels like the whole story could have been told just as well in 60 minutes: Nothing really happens, and long takes are really long here. I thought the movie would be about grandfather and grandson growing close to each other, but you barely even saw them interact. In fact, the movie solely focuses on its main character, and that is where its strength lies.
I think that the cinematography of the film is what makes it the most interesting; I especially loved those shots where people were talking but you didn’t actually see them speak. In the café scene, there was a focus on the main character’s shoes; during rehearsal for the TV show, you only saw John Malkovich. Just thinking of that scene makes me want to laugh. Oh, Malkovich is such a genius for being able to pull that scene off. XD
And the biggest surprise of the whole movie was that Catherine Deneuve had no significant role in the whole movie whatsoever. She did nothing but play in the play at the very beginning and look shocked at the end of her appearance in the film. That’s it?
Finally, I think it was Malkovich’s role and the absolutely brilliant end that made me feel like there is something more profound to this film that it looks like on the surface. For some reason, I kept thinking that the main character would simply go home and die at the end. But it didn’t happen, it was left ambiguous and now that I think about it, it’s a brilliant idea. I wonder if, one day when I am old, I am going to just want to go home too.
so glad you liked it!
omfg thinking about the ending makes me SO SAD. but then again it’s so marvellous, how a film with a protagonist who had to go through so much grief, at such a relatively late point in his life, can still manage to be so full of humor and lightness – the ending is incredible and not even explicitly… depressing… it’s quite shockingly and suddenly reflective. like, part of what makes it so brilliant and effective is, that initially you wouldn’t think it’s the last shot of the film, you kinda expect a next shot following Gilbert up the stairs, and then it just lingers that bit longer and the whole, ugh, “weight” of the things the film has so knowingly been omitting just sinks in (and then the film actually ends!).
I think it makes a lot of sense. When you are old, you might have a different and to some way wiser and more distant way to cope with things, even when the it’s one of the most horrible things that could happen to you as an old man.
The last shot is absolutely brilliant indeed. I had a “so this is what the movie is about” moment when I saw the scene and it suddenly gave the whole film another level of meaning for me. Even up until the end, everything was shown very subtly and differently from how people normally would shoot those scenes. I loved it.