Kidult drama
Belgian actor J?mie Renier is only 26 years old but his body of work is already impressive. At the age of 15 he made a splash starring in The Promise, directed by Belgium’s Dardenne brothers, and a couple of years later was the teenage star of Fran?s Ozon’s Criminal Lovers. Last year he was riveting in the Dardennes’ Golden Palm winner The Child (both Dardennes movies were released here on DVD last month) and once again he dominates the screen in Private Property, currently screening in the French Film Festival.
He has some stiff competition from veteran Isabelle Huppert, most recently seen here in I Heart Huckabees and Ozon’s 8 Femmes, and also from his actor brother Yannick Renier -“ they play fraternal twins though they’re not in real life.
Huppert plays Pascale, mother of twins Thierry (J?mie) and Fran?s (Yannick), and the three live in a farm property bought for them by her ex-husband after their bitter divorce. Pascale starts an affair with their neighbour, who encourages her to sell the house so the two of them can set up a B&B in the south of France. When the twins hear of her plans, family warfare erupts because they consider the house is rightfully theirs.
The wordless rapport between the two brothers is amazing to witness, whether they’re just lounging in front of the TV, playing video games, shooting rats in the pond with their air rifles, struggling in the mud with Fran?s’ broken-down motor bike, even sharing a bath together and shampooing each other’s hair. Pascale is no match for them but, when they turn against each other, catastrophe ensues. Thierry is a monstrous character, and his long climactic crying scene, played in extreme close-up against a backdrop of out-of-focus action, leaves the viewer aghast. It’s an astonishing performance, without the egotistical posing you’d expect from Hollywood actors of that age bracket. J?mie is not particularly sexy or attractive, sometimes looks 10 or even 20 years older than 26, never appears to be showing off his obvious acting talent, and consequently is all the more effective for that.
Equally striking is the rigorous style maintained by Belgian director Joachim Lafosse. Generally, the camera remains stationary while the action moves in and out of the frame, right up until two important camera movements near the end of the movie, one slight, the other more obvious. The latter, shot from a moving vehicle leaving the farm, has the effect of releasing us at last from the film’s oppressive setting, the property in question. Unfortunately, it’s accompanied by Private Property‘s first notes of background music, a loud discordant orchestral piece. The camera movement by itself was sufficient; the music is directorial overkill.
Private Property has two more screenings in the French Film Festival 2007: Palace Norton Street, Leichhardt, Monday 19 March, 6:30pm; Palace Academy Twin, Paddington, Tuesday 20 March, 6:20pm.
