His Brother

A film about death. and brotherhood. and the fight against yourself. and need of the other. and about forms of hope. all simple reflections of interior fights and profound intimacy, about fear and need to be near the other who represents, in real sense, part from yourself. a film as testimony about the genius of a great director. and about subtle, precise, touching acting. because it is one of the films with basic status as mirror for states of soul. the story as pretext for deep honesty. poetic. and cruel.

When I saw this film recently on the Sundance Channel, I had no advance knowledge of it. That is how I prefer to watch any film, but publicity -- being what it is -- usually stands in the way of any such cleanly objective approach.

In this case, the story is told in segments that play around with chronological time yet achieve an overall effect of linearity. Central to the film are scenes in the hospital that capture as no other film I have seen the stark and compressed place where life and death coexist. Normally that suggests soap opera bathos, as in such TV dramas as ER or General Hospital. But here is only an overwhelming display of truly remarkable clinical minutiae, against which an inner drama between the characters is allowed to play out either in silence or in visual takes showing the characters reacting to an unfolding revelation of who they really are and how they relate to each other. The director achieves his goal through understatement, with few exceptions. Quintessentially French.

Even the love scenes, such as they are, have a clinical feel to them. If I have one negative comment, it is that the film lacks any contrasting relief from its lugubrious tone, no touch of irony or brief bit of self-effacement. Small wonder some viewers may find it flat or uninspiring.

Yet the tacit theme of finding new ways of looking at oneself through suffering and change stands out. The two brothers are seen to rekindle a relationship that had been lost or misplaced, even as death approaches inexorably. I would not mind sitting through it again to examine more closely some of its subtleties hiding behind the sledgehammer reality of hospital life.

I saw Son Frere recently in Montreal in the original French (no subtitles). It certainly was a "brooding" dark film that really concentrated on closeups and detail in the European tradition. For me, the changes in time and settings did not take away from the relationship theme of the two brothers and their gradual reconciliation. I thought the detailed hospital scenes were a bit long but very realistic, though sombre. Ironically, I did not find the film depressing as it gave hope that something good comes in times of crisis. I will remember the film more for the two main actors, who I think were very well cast in these roles. It was more like watching a play or "the real thing" with long moments of silence or little spoken to reflect. Not a film that may have "mass appeal" but worthwhile seeing and memorable.

This was Chéreau's best since "L'homme blessé", an excellent little film about affection, compassion, brotherly love, death, courage. The proposed situation (an older brother dying from a blood disease seeks the support of his younger brother, somehow evoking the most critical days of the spread of AIDS) is handled with a calm tone, in a rather "Cartesian approach", not lacking bursts of emotion, but avoiding facile sentimentality. Fine script by Chéreau and Anne-Louise Trividic, from a novel by Philippe Besson, with a clever structure intersecting different planes of time, plus good performances all over, especially by Bruno Todeschini and Éric Caravaca, and firm direction by Patrice Chéreau.

Director Patrice Chereau, famous for many great films, made this movie. This, of course, let me hope that I would see a good film, at least. But no, this one is not. It is a slow film, and boring.

Two brothers with a problematic relationship in the past, find together again when the elder one gets a dangerous disease and asks his brother to accompany him to several doctors.

So far, so good: This could have been a typical French film about relationships. This could have been a sad tragedy, watching the one brother getting ill. This could have been a good movie, after all, because the acting is really good. But, I can only repeat: This is a boring, slow, far too long picture. The script is poor, and the directing uninspired. Very disappointing.