French/Swiss director Ursula Meier debut feature film has
been described as a road movie in reverse.
Home (2008) involves a family of
five, mum and dad played by Isabelle Huppert and Oliver Gourmet and their three
children who for ten years have incorporated an abandoned motorway as part of
their front garden. They use it for late night roller hockey, a paddling pool
and an armchair straddle’s the lanes with the family satellite dish hooked up
from the crash barrier in the centre reservation. Then suddenly the family’s
private existence is shattered when the motorway is finally opened. Eldest
daughter Julien (Adelaide Leroux) escapes while the remaining family members
descend into the type of madness similar to that portrayed in Polanski’s
Repulsion (1965). The movie is a
metaphor for the horrors of the modern world and the sad decline of the family
unit, displaying the way freedom can descend into a claustrophobic existence. Great
acting from all involved in this original story with fantastic camerawork from famous
French cinematographer Agnes Godard with her marvellous use of light and dark.
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