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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 17 July 2008

Dominique Reymond as Lisa and Charles Berling as Frédéric in Summer Hours

Art and the next generation gain

SUMMER HOURS
Directed by Olivier Assayas
Certificate 12a

DOES an object lose its beauty when it is no longer used for its original purpose?
Is a priceless vase better displayed in a glass museum cabinet, or among other domestic knick-knacks on a table with flowers stuffed in the top?
Such are the questions celebrated director Olivier Assayas attempts to deal with in this thoughtful family saga.
We meet an extended French household at a long birthday lunch in the garden of the house they grew up in: matriarch Helene knows she does not have long to live and uses the occasion to discuss her will with Frederic, her eldest son.
For years she has been the standard bearer for her late uncle’s art: he is Paul Bertiere, a famous French illustrator who has amassed a collection of important pieces of furniture, all steadily decaying in his rambling countryside home.
When Helene passes away, her three offspring have to decide how to share the house and its contents between themselves, and respect her wish to keep her beloved uncle’s name, and collection, alive. But there are questions to be asked. Two of the siblings are more concerned with the future than the past, which creates tensions. And the relationship between Helene and Paul is ambiguous: it is clear there was a deep love between them, that led to Helene dedicating the rest of her days after his death to preserving his memory. But there is also an undercurrent of exactly how far the relationship went
It is tricky in parts but only because it covers some serious ground – how families evolve from one generation to another, and how the young lament the loss of the old.
If this wasn’t a big enough task, Summer Hours also manages to eloquently ask some tricky questions about what makes an object aesthetically valuable?
Assayas uses a final scene, in which oldest son Frederic is walking through the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and gazes at his mother’s possessions. He has carried out her wishes and they are on display. But he can’t help feel that their soul has disappeared.
Assayas says: “I wanted to talk about how art is born from life and gets embalmed in museums. I like museums, but the pieces in them are in a zoo. When they are made, they live, breathe and exist with the world. The museum takes their light away.”

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