SFIFF52-HOME

Director URSULA MEIER

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adelaide Leroux, Madeleine Budd, Kacey Mottet

One of the incredible Swiss films at the festival that is up for the NEW DIRECTORS AWARD. The film has been shown at many festivals and it has won many awards. It is easy to see why....IT IS EXCELLENT -HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The CONSULATE GENERAL OF SWITZERLAND and his wife attended the showing of HOME at the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

HOME is different to everyone, but  it usually produces images of happiness and contentness.  All this is true in the beginning of the film where the wonderful Isabelle Huppert lovingly mothers her family who go to an 'abandoned' summer home along an 'abandoned' highway.

Everything is sweet and loving with close family trust and love. Driector MEIER shows the love and happeniess of a family that is about to take an extreme turn for the worse.

A unique modern horror story with out the 'trashiness' of the mass-marketed films, but the classly horror of ALFRED HITCHCOCK. 

In this uniquely layered film, HITCHCOCK's birds are replaced with MEIER's automobiles!

The 'abandoned' highway next to the family's house suddenly without warning is opened for business after 10 years of being closed.

The cars start using the highway and at first the family is amused with the passing of the cars. Then slowly, the horror of the modern world encompasses and envelops the loving family. The stress of the noise and the level of violation of the family's private space slowly enfolds. 

The happy family starts to fall apart piece by piece.

Director URSULA MEIER does a wonderful job of guiding her young actors into showing the crashing of the family's closeness. Parnoidness takes over one of the daughters, while young son acts out his violence. The eldest daughter can not handle the family destruction nor the noise and she takes her life into her own hands.

The mother and father want to stand strong while the attacking vechicles become more numerous. The round up the family and , like a wagon train in a cowboy movie, they try to seal the outside world from their home by putting up insulation .

The inside the home starts to look like modern art paintings with their slashes of color and protruding greys &; whites.   The peaceful landscape  which brings EDWARD HOPPER and ANDREW WYETH to mind, have now become a horror of modern metal sculpture-cars.

A very different 'invasion of aliens' movie, where the 'alien' is an everyday object, the car.

How will the family continue to handle their isolation in the cement tomb? Will they escape the new predators? Will they ever regain their happiness?

Director URSULA MEIER gives us a mult-layered film with many questions and opens our minds to the modern destruction of the family...progress. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED===ONE OF THE BEST

FILMS OF THE FESTIVAL

bEST LINES:

";Yuck. You know she'll never wear THAT thing.";

";You hear that? It's a red car. No, It's a green car.";

";CO2-GAS TOXIC!";

";You'll stop growing and remain a dwarf all your life.";

";She's showed off her boobs so much that someone has finished her off.";

Director, ";The family feels it can be stronger and stay together, but ultimately fail. ";

Director, "; It's sort of John Ford who loves Ingmar Bergam films.";