Home

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.