Film Series: L’heure d’été (Summer Hours)
L’heure d’été (Summer Hours) After the globe-spanning settings of his last three films, Olivier Assayas returns home for the mournful Summer Hours, examining a bourgeois French family trying to negotiate the past, present, and future. Assembled for the birthday of their widowed mother, Hélène, three siblings—Frédéric, Adrienne, and Jérémie—celebrate what will be their last family gathering at their once-beloved, magic ancestral home in the Île-de-France.Summer Hours is an impeccably observed family study, unimaginable without the remarkable ensemble of actors. Cinematographer Eric Gautier beautifully captures, in the two scenes that bookend Summer Hours, the very look and feel of what the film’s title evokes: sun-dappled, pastoral scenes of indolence and pleasure. (Drama, 100 minutes) |
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