with “Social Hygiene,” which brought him the best director prize in the Berlinale Encounters sidebar (shared with Ramon and Silvan Zürcher for “The Girl and the Spider”). The tendency to dodge from sincerity to satire and vice versa is unmistakably self-serving, but parsing the foibles of this little comedy makes a pleasant diversion, for a film that largely amounts to stagey scenes of two people bellowing petty philosophies at each other across a blustery meadow.
In the first setup, composed of two-thirds sky and one third grassy field that rolls away to distant mountains, the dissipated Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) is disappointing his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau). Their very names may be reminiscent of Chekhov and Ibsen, and their declamations may have a ring of 19th-century dramaturgy to them, but these characters are carefully styled to appear somewhat timeless, and their exchanges are peppered with references to Volkswagens and discount mattresses.
In the first setup, composed of two-thirds sky and one third grassy field that rolls away to distant mountains, the dissipated Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) is disappointing his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau). Their very names may be reminiscent of Chekhov and Ibsen, and their declamations may have a ring of 19th-century dramaturgy to them, but these characters are carefully styled to appear somewhat timeless, and their exchanges are peppered with references to Volkswagens and discount mattresses.
- 3/16/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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