MovieChat Forums > L'heure d'été (2009) Discussion > Marking the passing of French culture?

Marking the passing of French culture?

posted 13 years ago by ThomsonAAA
4 replies | jump to latest

The film seems a celebration of Frenchness; the art, the culture, the countryside. But the plot; emigration to America and China, kids taught in English, the younger generation talking about what is actually just French as been "another era", even the grand-daughter at the end sadly realising that the France she knew as a child has been sold off and taken from her future children. The film seems deliberately analogous to the wider loss of France to American cultural individualism and cheap consumerism. It's the same loss suffered here in the UK though we succumbed sooner and didn't realise it, perhaps because of the shared language the American culture overwhelmed us more subtly.

Either way an interesting typically French "Quite film", sort of Posh "mumblecore" with a lovely feel to it.

[–] Mogambo1 13 years ago

yes. i definitely picked up on the theme of french culture being encroached upon by the wider more integrated world. and even more so it was the passing of a different generation and their values/lifestyle.

for example, the contrast in music played at the beginning of the movie. classical music while the camera pans across the interior and exterior of the house. then at the end with the daughter's part at the house, hip hop and rock music.

also, i forget which parent said it, but they talk about how even though they speak french at home the kids are mainly into american culture.

[–] cristalle1 13 years ago

Excellent observation, you are spot on.

[–] henrimaine 9 years ago

That's an interesting take on the movie - the old classic French high culture being lifted from its traditional location in an old family castle and sold into museums where tourists walk by it without noticing. That's basically what happened in this movie. But is this really a bad thing? Let's remember that most families don't have such old family mansions and antique collections (not even in France). Most families don't have such "problems" after their mother passes away. Is it really a bad thing when the culture is presented for people who cannot own it?

[–] ThomsonAAA 9 years ago

Maybe not a bad thing giving up privilege but it wasn't really a very grand house even, nice garden but otherwise fairly modest.

I think symbolically the point was they were giving up family unity, selling the house which was the hub and moving abroad. The family used to include a famous artist now they move to china to make trainers. Bit of a come down. The kids listening to hiphop are being americanised. They learn Mandarin and English in school instead of French. They are not interested in anything of French culture whether high or not. French culture is something for the old generation. Thats something big, it can't always have been typical for the new generation to abandon what the parents were on or a culture would never have developed over generations but be free floating and random each generation. That's kind of worrying if we have no idea which direction a nation is heading because the youth just follow their whims.