A Comedy?


Maybe nobody else did but I thought this film was a hilarious comedy. Sure it had its serious moments, but trying to put up with that darned freeway was laughing out loud funny. No way would I have had the courage to dodge all those cars trying to get to the other side.

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I'm inclined to agree, actually, at least as far as the first hour is concerned. There were a number of scenes that made me laugh out loud, mostly because of the ludicrous juxtaposition of this vast motorway with the normal life the family are trying so determinedly to carry on with on and around it, and the sheer uncomplicated joy they so often give off - before things turn darker. The scene with Michel balancing on the roof of his car and 'sexily' unveiling the chest freezer to his family lined up on the other side of the road springs instantly to mind :)


I am a citizen of the universe, and a gentleman to boot

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There are some really funny moments in this film I agree.

The one thing that really bugged me is why did they always have to cross the road? What was on the other side of the house and why couldn't they ever go that way? It reminded me of a cartoon. A really surreal French cartoon.

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I like the 'cartoon' notion, you've got a point there... I think the layout of the action helps, apart from anything else, in that the 'set' is almost two-dimensional: the scenes overall cover a fair amount of width, a good few hundred yards along the motorway, but very little depth if you see what I mean - things rarely move very far outward at right angles to the road, almost the whole film in constrained in a narrow strip within a few paces of the roadside.

That's an interesting thought too about what else might lie on the same side of the motorway as the house does: I've never once thought about what's in the other direction, i.e. behind the house - as I alluded to above, there's no indication of what world you'd find away from the road. It's like they're backed up against the edge of the world, all the action faces in the opposite direction doesn't it? Fascinating to conjecture :)

I am a citizen of the universe, and a gentleman to boot

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I can imagine a creek or large ditch running a long ways parallel to the road behind the house, without a bridge. But I cannot imagine the roof of a car or station wagon (as in the movie) being able to support a long, heavy freezer with a guy on top of that even, and no collapse of the vehicle's roof. The culvert under the road could have been exploited simply by buying a skate board, whisking people and supplies under the road using ropes. But frequent rains in area could spoil that scenario pretty quickly.

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The one thing that really bugged me is why did they always have to cross the road?

To get to the other side.

Lol, sorry, I couldn't resist.

What was on the other side of the house and why couldn't they ever go that way?

The one other road (dirt road) was on the other side of the highway, and I kinda got the impression that they were on the outskirts of town, and their house just happened to be on the far side of the highway. So they had to cross the highway to get anywhere important (work, school, stores, etc.), and behind them was probably just a lot of open country.

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I agree. The genre is not only "drama", but meanly a "tragedy-comedy" as we call it in Holland. IMDb doesn't seem to have a good fit on any "black humor" in films.

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I agree that this film portrays both the classic theater masks of "Comedy and Tragedy", but intertwined all through the film as well.

Although the first part of the film portrays many light hearted, even comedic moments in this family's life, there is also palpable tragedy there too. The tragedy lies in the fact that this family seemingly HAD TO live in utter physical and social isolation. Except for the youngest child, the son, none of the other family members are shown to have any social contacts in the outside world, save those that were absolutely necessary (work, school, shopping, etc). And the mother Marthe is NEVER shown to have social contact outside of her family, even having the daughter and father do the grocery shoping. Why is that? What does that mean? For me, the utter social isolation and physical desolation of this family home is not completely a matter of choice, but is somewhat a matter of NECESSITY, to hide, to obscure the sickness that lies beneath the "happy" veneer of this family's life. In this context, the outward confusion and the outward horror that emerges in the life of this family after the highway opens is not so much "caused" by the opening of the highway, as much as the opening of the highway creates a set of circumstances that allowed the submerged sickness already in the family dynamic to surface. The opening of the highway in this family's life not only brought physical discomforts, but it also symbolically brought the social contact that they so carefully long avoided in their once isolated home.

On the other hand, the second part of the film also combined elements of comedy and tragedy as well, at least for me. The tragic elements are explicitly and literally portrayed in the film, and need no further explanation. The comedy in the second half for me revolves around the question: "How can these people live this way?" This comedic element is, of course, based on the assumption that this family was fully capable of moving, of "escaping from" this house if they so chose. But this clearly was not the case.

This family was utterly incapable of moving from that house, based on a dynamic that revolves around a truly sick mother. The subtle mental illness of the mother is most clearly exposed in the film when the father makes the decision to move the family away, only to confront the utterly insane resistance of the mother against such a move. That she was shown physically fighting the father, and clinging to pieces of furniture to avoid the father physically removing her from that house not only dramatically unveils the mental illness lying beneath the outward happy appearance of the mother, but of the whole rest of the family as well, for the children seem to then side with the mother by deciding that they too choose to remain in this "house by the freeway", and lock themselves in the bathroom with her to hide from the father. This is the point where the father caves in to the clearly sick wishes of his wife, agrees that they will all remain there, and starts "fortifying" the house. In short, at that point the whole rest of the family relents to, and accommodates to the clearly insane wishes of the mother, a choice that they all undoubtedly made, at some level of explicitness, many times over the years, just to be able to maintain the façade of their happy and normal family life.

Another comedic, yet also tragic element of this film for me is the disappearance of the "forever sunbathing" adult child Judith. It is comedic because she doesn't seem to be bothered or embarrassed in displaying her scantily clad body by the side of a busy highway, out there for all travelers to ogle and to "admire" her "feminine attributes". It is also comedic because one can only surmise that her sudden disappearance was due to the persuasiveness of a young passing male motorist who was enchanted by this beauty so freely exhibiting her attractive wares by the roadside. The tragedy behind Judith's "disappearance" is that it was facilitated by the increase of public contact, public exposure, brought about by the opening of the highway, public contact that the whole family so guarded against in their long years of social isolation. It seems that Judith, once she made tangible social contact with the "real", outside world, apparently in the form of a male admirer, immediately realized the longstanding, yet subtle insanity of her family life, and didn't hesitate to depart, and this in itself seems both rather hilarious and rather tragic for me as well.

The skillful literary duplicity embedded in this carefully crafted screenplay must be realized to fully appreciate both the ironic comedy and the ironic tragedy interwoven through this whole film. For the naïve appearance of the cinematic "portrait" of the "happy family" so effectively portrayed at the beginning of this film, is at the same time riddled with many "clues' that symbolically point to the sickness that that also lurks within it. The self imposed social isolation of this family is one such clue, as well as the scene of the naked adult daughter in the bathtub with her naked little brother, with the mother standing by in silent assent.

Overall, the skillful interweaving of comedy and tragedy in this family's life is somewhat a social commentary on all families, on the very notion of "family life" altogether. It is harsh observation that beneath the "happy", even comedic veneer that every family portrays not only to the outside world, but amongst themselves, lies the tragedy of "hidden secrets", of "unspeakable" family matters best left unspoken of, best left to lie beneath the façade of the ever "happy family".

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