This is a film about legacies – both emotional and material – concerning the things we leave behind when we die. Often, this is just so much emotional baggage that we refuse to sort through; keeping those left behind from moving on. The dead must bury the dead and this is communicated in this movie via many family heirlooms that no one really wants.
Here, home is clearly where the heart is, yet there is a conflict between those who can tolerate the sight of the family home and its contents being sold to strangers and those who cannot. That many of these items are donated to the Musée d'Orsay emphasizes the idea of the existence of repositories of cultural memory that work in tandem with the more personal recollections we all have. While the fact of their donation gently suggests the age old battle between objects having sentimental value as opposed to the more monetary kind. This is beautifully pointed up when the aged housekeeper is allowed to take a vase from the house for sentimental reasons which, unbeknown to her, is worth a great deal of money.
As is so often the case, in real life, emotions are invested in objects belonging to those we love and value: Tokens of love not substitutes for a love that was absent. This is elegant and elegiac stuff from a director who can handle an ensemble and first rate cast with aplomb and a script that allows them to portray strongly delineated and differentiated characters.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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