Spinning inspired variations on Ozu’s Late Spring, Claire Denis draws us close to pensive railway engineer Lionel (Alex Descas, quietly magnetic) and his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop, radiant). They share routines of quiet affection, having grown through grieving the loss of a wife and mother together. But Josephine’s relationship with her stormy boyfriend Noé (Grégoire Colin) has a vital momentum. We haven’t experienced much of this father-daughter history, but Denis’ loving attention to every detail makes their sensual togetherness such an appealing ‘now’ that we share Lionel’s dread of the ‘not yet.’ The implications are clear: So much of the meaning we find in our lives comes about when we loosen our grip on what is familiar and attend to the possibilities of revision. Films that stick to such visual simplicity invite us to find symbolic significance in anything glimpsed more than once; here, Denis finds poetry in railroads, rice cookers, and more. Myriad readings are possible, but it’s hard to escape the emphasis on aging, on the prospect of ‘retirement,’ on the meaning that we make in the tension between routine and disruption. Something is bound to ‘go off the rails,’ and it does, more than once. One disruption comes about due to one operating system’s breakdown (a car), and one shutdown system’s revival (a restaurant re-opened after closing), occasioning a masterfully lyrical scene set to The Commodores’ ‘Night Shift.’ The prospect of death, the possibility of rebirth—so much depends on our attentiveness to both. — Jeffrey Overstreet
- Directed by: Claire Denis
- Produced by:
- Written by: Claire Denis Jean-Pol Fargeau
- Music by:
- Cinematography by: Agnès Godard
- Editing by:
- Release Date: 2009
- Running Time: 100
- Language: French, German
Arts & Faith Lists:
2019 Top 25 Films on Growing Older — #21