When Fall Is Coming

"Quand vient l'automne" can be translated as "When fall comes". In this film this can be taken literally as the film has many beautiful images of fall but also figuratively as the film is about two old ladies who are overtaken by their own past.

The film starts with one of the old ladies serving a meal of self-picked mushrooms to her daughter. The daugther becomes very sick but survives. Because the tension between the daughter and mother was already there before the meal the question is, was this an accident or an assassination attempt? This is the beginning of a film full of plot twists.

The mushroom poisoning theme made me think of "Fiorile" (1993, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani).

The film full of plot twists made me think of the earlier Ozon movie "Huit femmes" (2002).

Compared to "Quand vient l'automne" "Huit femmes" is a purely artifical movie. "Quand vient l'automne" is much more naturalistic although not in every respect plausible.

In "Huit femmes" there are only female characters, in "Quand vient l'automne" there are also male characters, but not in a father role. There seem to be only mothers.

"Huit femmes" is a pure "who-donnit", "Quand vient l'automne" is much more of the "why-did he/she do it" nature

"Quand vient l'automne" is entertainment in the first place. It is good entertainment but in my opinion a bit less entertaining as "Huit femmes". This is due to the fact that the film contains a few little flaws. I will mention two of them.

For the first one I return to the accident / assassination question I mentioned in the beginning of this review. At the start of the film memory disorder is suggested as a third possible reason by way of a few "absences" of the main character. This possibility remains up in the air for the rest of the film.

In the second place the character of daughter Valérie is very one dimensional (and very unsympathetic). Valérie is played by Ludivine Sagnier, who can do much better. She proved this for example in (you might guess it) .... "Huit femmes".

When is a crime not a crime? That seems to be a question French films are asking lately. Latest to explore this issue is Francois Ozon in his new film with the awkwardly translated title WHEN FALL IS COMING. The main story concerns a woman, Michelle, and the strained relationship with her daughter. The daughter right off the bat appears eager for her mother to die so she can inherit the lovely country home, even though Michelle has already given her the beautiful large apartment in the city. The whole film is beautifully photographed with the autumn foliage providing a spectacular backdrop. It's mushroom season. The daughter, an embittered divorcee, brings her young son to visit his grandmother, Michelle. Michelle and her grandson enjoy a very loving relationship. Michelle makes lunch featuring a sumptuous mushroom dish. After lunch, she and her grandson go on an outing together. They return to find that the daughter has fallen ill, apparently from having eaten a poison mushroom. The daughter accuses her mother of deliberately trying to poison her. The police investigate. The cops are sympathetic, but the daughter threatens to keep her grandson away from his grandmother. It turns out that Michelle has an unsavory past, which is at the root of her daughter's bitterness. Michelle's best friend is Marie-Claude, whom she accompanies to visit her son Vincent, who is imprisoned for some unstated crime. (At one point we see him going to a gay cruising ground.) Apparently, he's basically a good person who just has a lot of bad habits that get him into trouble. He loves Michelle, who has always been kind to him. When Marie-Claude dies, he becomes closer to Michelle and wants to help smooth things over between her and her daughter. I don't want to include spoilers, but things take a negative turn at this point, raising a lot of questions. The police become suspicious and step up their investigation of Michelle and Vincent. This is an intelligent and compelling film for adults. There are no car chases, explosions, or vulgar jokes. It held my attention all the way through, despite the unsensational approach to the material. Performances are all excellent, especially Helene Vincent as Michelle. (Who says that there are no good roles for older women? Maybe in Hollywood, but the French have given us a great one in this film.) The more I think about this film, the more I appreciate it.

Ozon masterfully tells a rural tale of family intrigue that raises more questions than is answers. That is all by design; the key pieces of the jigsaw puzzle happen off-screen, leaving the audience to speculate on degrees of culpability. Hélène Vincent as Michelle gives a masterclass in nuanced expressions. Michelle is a woman with a colorful past, one she neither tries to hide or revels in. We get glimpses of her attitude in a confident unspoken greeting to former co-workers at a funeral. In her relationship with her daughter, is Michelle the abuser or the abused?

Pierre Lottin as Vincent is equally enigmatic. His devotion to Michelle seems at first admirable, but then after a Paris visit, takes on shadows. If this pair are as evil as certain signs hint at, then Vincent is cult follower to Michelle's guru leadership.

A mother's devotion to her son is the stuff of legend, but this film suggests a grandmother's attachment to her grandson might just outstrip that. This film is both delightful and disturbing by turn. Classy, nuanced filmmaking that uses ambiguity in the right way.

Most Ozon's films have something theatrical about them; not all of them though and it's not easy to pinpoint what exactly it is that makes them feel this way. However, what is clear, that something makes them charming, character-oriented, very pronounced and beautifully down-to-earth.

The plot is quite simple at the beginning but it twists itself further on and as the whole story unfolds, it becomes more intriguing thus diversifying the genre into more of a thriller or even a detective story. For almost two hours, we are observing lower middle class family members dealing with (or not) with their past (impossible to change) and present problems (Ozon focuses on those this time, and he is being hopeful in a very sweet way). The autumn in the film is a bit sad yet colorful and very beautiful, which is an obvious allegory to a human life. We become more aware of the mistakes of the past, but at the same time we have some more life to live, and we have those significant others that we love and live for. Autumn is the right time to re-establish the values, to accept and to forgive.

An ordinary film.

There's no wow factor in this movie at all. It's plain and simple, nothing more nothing less. It's straightforward in the way it tells a story and the story itself is nothing deep nor unique. The acting isn't too bad and does make the film a bit more engaging. The main aspect of the movie that carried it entirely is the cinematography, the scenes are beautifully rendered and balanced to create this almost welcoming, engulfing atmosphere. Every scene is a pleasure to the eye and focuses on every little detail to make it as realistic and genuine as possible. Overall a decent film, nothing special.