
Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale). 2008. France. Directed by Arnaud Desplechin. Screenplay by Desplechin, Emmanuel Bourdieu. With Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Chiara Mastroianni. In French; English subtitles. 150 min.
Arnaud Desplechin is, dare we say, the Noah Baumbach of French cinema, an urbane wit who can effortlessly and shamelessly drop Emerson, Nietzsche, Funny Face, and Cecil Taylor references even as he mines the human propensity for self-delusion and doubt with a deep and knowing pathos. The family here in question are three generations of Vuillards, holed up in their cozy manor for the holidays yet ill at ease with the specter of illness and death, ancient resentments and impetuous slights, that makes them strangers to one another. Despleschin excels at methodical madness as he caroms from one tortuous, torturous relationship to the next, using all manner of mischievous cinematheque technique, including the casting of real-life mother and daughter Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni as mother and daughter-in-law.