Das Haus am Meer

Guédiguian's movies are highly charged with social, political, philosophical and emotional subjects. He uses the same actors, and almost all his films are filmed in his birthplace Marseille. In his 2017 'The House by the Sea' he expresses the same social subjects, using the same actors, and the filming location in Marseille. This establishes a continuity with his other films, not unlike a painter using the same color palette.

Particularly strong here is the subject of the roots that people maintain to a place, usually their birthplace. While some characters in the movie have left town, they do return, even though only for special occasions.

The film's characters are damaged demoralized and full of grief. Angèle, who returns to see her incapacitated father after 20 years, must reconnect with her daughter's death, Bérangère who is in an impossible relationship with Joseph and is about to leave him and Benjamin who is hopelessly in love with a woman twice his age or more.

A sense of moral devotion is clearly expressed by all the characters.