Cycles (Les murs porteurs) reviews
Review by on 30 Sep 2008
It's hard to believe that this is a debut feature - it is so assued. Beautifully understated and insightful piece, that resonantes long after the film has finished.
It's hard to believe that this is a debut feature - it is so assued. Beautifully understated and insightful piece, that resonantes long after the film has finished.
Review by on 26 Sep 2008
Simon’s mother is confused and remote, searching all over for her dead husband. Simon’s daughter is just as distant as her passage into adulthood tests her and her first boyfriend tests Simon.
The family is bound together by second-hand memories of the Warsaw ghetto, relayed to the present on cine film, and the Paris flat where they once lived together.
Despite her remoteness and muddled memory, it is Simon’s mother that holds the family together and provides its strength – she is the ‘supporting wall’ of the French title, LE MUR PORTEUR.
The film prompts questions about how values and identity trickle between the generations. It touches on contrasts between the fixed images of the past held in photos and on film, and the changing recollections of the past we hold in our minds. It dwells rather longer on the pain caused by change outside our control: Simon’s despair when his mother is lost to dementia, his anger when his daughter introduces him to her lover.
The minimalist cinematography is unobtrusive, with still shots into a room allowing the viewer to concentrate on the dialogue and acting. One sequence stands out, where Simon (Charles Berling) lays his hand on the inside of a cupboard in the old family home – one of the few places in the flat where the past hasn’t been painted over. The physical contact between him and the home he knew as a child takes him back, but it is left to the audience to imagine what he feels. An intelligent, touching film.
Jason Palmer, Festival Daily
Simon’s mother is confused and remote, searching all over for her dead husband. Simon’s daughter is just as distant as her passage into adulthood tests her and her first boyfriend tests Simon.The family is bound together by second-hand memories of the Warsaw ghetto, relayed to the present on cine film, and the Paris flat where they once lived together.
Despite her remoteness and muddled memory, it is Simon’s mother that holds the family together and provides its strength – she is the ‘supporting wall’ of the French title, LE MUR PORTEUR.
The film prompts questions about how values and identity trickle between the generations. It touches on contrasts between the fixed images of the past held in photos and on film, and the changing recollections of the past we hold in our minds. It dwells rather longer on the pain caused by change outside our control: Simon’s despair when his mother is lost to dementia, his anger when his daughter introduces him to her lover.
The minimalist cinematography is unobtrusive, with still shots into a room allowing the viewer to concentrate on the dialogue and acting. One sequence stands out, where Simon (Charles Berling) lays his hand on the inside of a cupboard in the old family home – one of the few places in the flat where the past hasn’t been painted over. The physical contact between him and the home he knew as a child takes him back, but it is left to the audience to imagine what he feels. An intelligent, touching film.
Jason Palmer, Festival Daily
Film details
Cycles (Les murs porteurs)
NEW FEATURES
Director: Cyril Gelblat
Actor: Miou-Miou
Actor: Charles Berling
Actor: Shulamit Adar
Actor: Miou-Miou
Actor: Charles Berling
Actor: Shulamit Adar
France, 2008.
92 mins. French with English subtitles.
Back to the film page
