Just watched this on film 4 and actually thought it was okay despite being pretty wierd.
I just don't understand why the mother wanted to stay at the house so badly! Why not move to a place nearby but away from the noise, sound and air pollution from the motorway?
Instead they build over the windows and sound-proof the walls then later the dad gives them all sleeping pills, builds over the doors and tries to kill them all!
You kind of expect this from the French, Absolutely mental!
I think it is evident from their lifestyle that the family are not too well off and they may not have been in a position to move house. It is also mentioned that the mother feels settled there.
I had been living in a location where life had become intolerable due to a change of neighbors, although moving (at huge cost!) fixed the problem, the period before moving I experienced a massive breakdown because of the pressure. I'm normally a regular bloke who copes with whatever life throws at me however, it is quite frightening how ones mind can be altered when these type of circumstances arise.
Mental? maybe!
mmm - good neighbours are one of the most important things in life ! I suspect many people take this for granted - it's only when the nightmare begins that many people realise this fundamental fact .
That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .
I had wondered if they were actually squatters.
The mother tells the father she doesn't want to move again, which sounds like they've had some instability in their lives. Also it's mentioned that they've been in the house 10 years, and it's announced on the radio that the road has been awaited for 10 years.
Normally there would be some kind of compulsory purchase/settlement when building a motorway next to a country house - it could be the original owners took the money and abandoned the house and the family found it and moved in.
Either that or they bought it at a rock bottom price.
Agree with richimorton about neighbours - it doesn't matter how nice the building is if the neighbours aren't good it won't be a happy home.
It is very clear to anyone who watches the film the the mother has deep psychological problems and issues with moving and/or commuting.
We call this the Loom of Fate.
The two clues in the film, one has already been mentioned, that the mother "does not want to move again" and the other is pretty early in the film, one of the other family members comments "this is the only place she feels well".
Brilliant, hints at some illness and as the film progresses it becomes quite likely that the illness is psychological. Just perfect, natural dialog and performances that don't spell things out literally, but really put you with a family that has spent many years together in that situation.
Gradually the mental health issues spread to the rest of the family until the mother breaks free of her chains and saves them all.
It's interesting that nobody uses the short dialogue between Marion and Marthe as an argument for Marthe's psychic condition, when Marion asks her mother why doesn't she find a job a starts working again. Marthe is so frightened because of the changes that can happen after the opening if the highway, but she is too tied to the sanctuary she has made for herself in her home that she won't leave it for a job or any other reasons - all the shopping are done by the rest of the family, children bring groceries and father drives heavier things by car. Marthe answers Marion that she likes being with her family, and ends the discussion that she isn't in jail. Marion gives up so quickly making us understand that this is a topic that has already been discussed, but mostly avoided. Either she was told about her mother mental problems by her father or she concluded it being a intelligent and science-oriented girl, she knows that any further questions would make no sense, maybe would even lead to abrupt reaction.
Mothers illness also has to be carefully kept in mind while analyzing the end of the movie that is very open for interpretation. There is, of course, one main question - has the family survived their isolation or not, so is the home abandoned by their bodies or souls. There are signs that can be used as arguments for both options. The fact that Martha breathes heavily and hurries to break the wall to let fresh air in would suggest that they are alive; in this case Marthe, after sleeping long due to exhaustion, wakes up to accept her responsibility for the family that she always emphasized as her most important task, and this responsibility is stronger than her psychic disturbance, so she is able to save them. On the other hand, the fact that Marthe can't wake her family that sleep so tight in the middle of the day (well, in fact not knowing if it is day or night) so they might also be dead, can be an argument for the opposite opinion because suddenly her husband and children leave the house awake, fresh, with no sign of any disturbance let alone consequences either of lack of oxygen and light, or of drowsiness that could be expected due to abrupt awaking and sleeping pills; in this case Marthe, that led them to death by her behaving and her condition, now naturally keeps them leading further, a step beyond...
A very insightful set of observations about this film. Yes, indeed, Marthe is way crazy long before the highway opens, long before the narrative of the film even begins. The possible double interpretation of the ending never occurred to me at all, but seems right on the money to me.
shareQuote "I just don't understand why the mother wanted to stay at the house so badly!" Quote
Because she's CRAZY, that's why!!! And she was CRAZY long before the highway opened, and long before the narrative of this film even started!!!
The mother Marthe is the psychological focus of a VERY sick, dysfunctional family dynamic, a family dynamic that began long before this film even begins, a SICK family dynamic that this film ironically, and hilariously obscures with a "Normal, Happy, Family" façade, a totally phony front.
There is a lot of talk about "the importance of having good neighbors" in this thread, but have any of you stopped to consider that this family had NO neighbors WHATSOEVER before the highway opened? Not only did this family have no neighbors, they were living in EXTREME social isolation, EXTREME seclusion. There are apparently no neighbors at any distance to this house, and there's no normal street to even get to this house, a worn out path in an open field being the only access to this EXTREMELY isolated house. On top of it, this family, except for the young son Julien and his playmates, has NO social contact with the outside world at all, except for absolutely necessary contact like work, school, and shopping. This is not even to mention the patently BIZARRE location of this isolated house right next to an abandoned highway!!!
WHO LIVES THIS WAY???
Certainly not the "Happy, Normal Family" that is hilariously otherwise portrayed in this film!!! The "normal and happy" family appearance superficially portrayed at the start of this film is only possible because they can only portray it to each other, to the members within this EXTREMELY physically, and socially isolated group. Should they ever make contact with the "outside world", the "real world", the sickness of their family dynamic would be exposed immediately.
This family dynamic of isolation was common many years ago, when there was a real stigma associated with mental illness, when mental illness was even associated with "moral depravity" in the thinking of the general public. In those "less enlightened" times, if you had a family member who was suspected of being mentally ill, you kept it a "family secret", to avoid public ridicule, and even public condemnation. Accordingly, families with a mentally ill member went into social seclusion to avoid "negative publicity", and horrible rumors about their mentally ill family member, and through "guilt by association", about the whole family as well.
This is the drama being played out in this film. The mother is obviously mentally ill, although she is able to submerge it beneath a "good, normal mother" façade. The EXTREME isolation of their house, and the almost total lack of outside social contact has kept the mother's mental illness a "family secret", a "secret" that all the other family members even keep from each other by maintaining a "there's no problem here", "normal and happy family" façade. It is only when the highway is opened that the façade unravels, that mother's obvious mental illness is dramatically exposed in the scene where she insanely resists the father's quite rational decision to move the family away from an obviously unhealthy situation. The opening of the highway not only brings physical discomforts to this family, but it even inadvertently tears the veil of social isolation so carefully guarded by the family for many years through the (admittedly impersonal) social contact with hundreds of motorists passing by their house every day.
To see this drama of a family isolating a mentally ill mother from public judgment in a 21st Century setting is truly a mind bender for me, because although I've read about it happening many decades ago, this film exposes it as a relevant contemporary issue. And although what I've read about this dynamic of decades past including such isolation techniques as keeping the window shades drawn at all times, and not ever answering a knock at the front door, in the modern 21st Century setting of this film, the isolation is quite literal, setting the family home miles away from the nearest neighbor, and not even accessible by a paved street.
I think you overplay the role of the mothers mental illness in this film. The film isnt about the mothers mental illness. The film is about the circumstances effecting ALL of them. The only one that seems immune is the older daughter who remains unaffected and defiant thus acting as a a kind of foil to the rest. The other three exhibit clear signs of trauma and breakdown both mentally and physically as the highway intrudes on their life. Yes, the mother clearly is neurotic and perhaps has some sort of social anxiety issues and obviously a kind of tropophobia (google it) but I think calling her "CRAZY! SICK! MENTALLY ILL!" is a little much. I dont think the husband wanted to leave either. None of them wanted to have their perfect little island taken over and destroyed by this road.
And the fact that they lived that way for so long doesnt imply they are "extremely dysfunctional" necessarily. Lots of humans live in remote isolation. I dare say for the vast vast majority of human history we ALL lived in remote isolated family packs. It seems strange to us NOW living as we have for a few millennia in giant interconnected societies where isolation seems abnormal. But we dont say every lost tribe deep in the Amazon or in the forests of New Guinea are sick individuals. They just happen to live there.
The real question is how did they come about living there? Some of that has already been discussed. I think it is their home legitimately. I just think its a bit of a commentary about the notoriously bad function of the public works departments in France who are known for taking years to get even small things done. This was a classic example. But did the house predate the highway entirely? Did it one day splice their long driveway and then get left untouched for ten years? And where were the couple living before this? Its implied there was lots of moving but we arent really told how their lives were so we cant really say if theyve always been a mess or not.
I found myself able to relate a lot to the feelings of the family. I lived in a kind of island in the middle of a city for a portion of my young adulthood. A beat up old house I shared with another family that was smack dab in the middle of a busy active urban neighborhood but we were surrounded by small woods on all sides so it felt like living in some country setting. It was absolutely the best of both worlds. You could walk to grocery stores, banks, bars, schools quite easily yet you could have a bon fire in your back yard and because you were surrounded by businesses no one was around to bother you at night. Inevitably, the cost of real estate in that location compelled the house owner to sell the property so it could be demolished and paved over for a parking lot. I still go back there to this day (some 15 years after the fact) and walk around the parking lot and remember fondly living on borrowed time in a perfect little paradise which we all knew couldnt last forever. I imagine thats how all the characters in this film felt too. In the end, I found myself admiring the older daughter who enjoyed the isolation but when it was clearly over she easily picked up and left and moved on. And I feel for the mother whose world was collapsing around here. And even walling it in wasnt working. And she became the catalyst for freeing the family from that prison.
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I had wondered if they were actually squatters.