Michael's Christmas Movie Guide: A Christmas Tale (2008)

Note: For Christmas in July, I will be continuing  Michael's Christmas Movie Guide, for this month.

We all have a preconceptions of what a Christmas movie is. We usually think of it as something optimistic, simple and heartwarming. Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is none of those things. The characters are not always likable, many points of the film are pretty pessimistic, and the story is not told in a traditional manner. Heck this movie even contains quotes from Neizche's On the Geneaology of Morality. This film is purely a French art film, and far from a Hollywood Christmas movie. However this film has a unique beauty all it's own.

The story involves the Vuillard family. After Junon (played by Catherine Deneuve) the grandmother of the family needs a bone marrow transplant. This happens just in time for the family to get together for Christmas. Two members of the family have the same blood type as Junon. These are the mental ill teenager Paul (played by Emile Berling) and Henri (played by Mathieu Amalric), her son. Paul is afraid that a blood transfer might reveal weather or not Claude (played by Hippolyte Girardot) is his real father. Meanwhile Slyvia (played by Chiara Mastroianni (daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcel Mastroianni)) finds out that along with her husband Ivan (played by Melvil Populaud), Henri and Simon (played by Laurent Capelluto) liked her as well and they decided Ivan should be the one to have her, this leads to an affair between Slyvia and Simon.

This story doesn't sound like your typical Christmas movie and it isn't. However what it is is a beautiful and thought provoking portirit of the type of family you don't see often in movies center around thid time of year. It is also a study of life and death. Well this may sound like  movie that has a lot of art but little entertainment that is not completely true. Moments such as the kids' play and a very akward giving of grace are actaully quite funny and add a nice contrast with the more serious and philosphical scenes. However this does not make the philosphical scenes any less profound or moving. It is clear that screenwriters Arnaud Desplechin (also the film's director) and Emmanuel Bourdieu (who also cowrote My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument with Desplechin (Desplechian also directed that film) really were passionate about what they were writing. Add to this a great score by Mike Kourtzer, outstanding cinematography by Eric Gautier and great performances by the whole cast and you have got an amazing film.

My fellow Alfred Hitchcock fans may note a scene that strongly resembles the art gallery scene in Vertigo (1958). This scene is not a direct copy nor an obscure reference only those familiar with Hitch's movie could get. If you are not familiar with Vertigo you won't notice it as it does not call attention to itself. This reference isn't here to add any depth to the movie but rather is a part of the director's more playful side.

The film might have various different subplots and run a whole 150 minutes, but it never feels episodic or overlong. Instead it all flows perfectly (the subplots help make the film feel like a family reunion itself) and not a moment feels wasted or like padding. 


-Michael J. Ruhland