A Christmas Tale ( Un conte de Noël )

A Christmas Tale (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Original Title: Un conte de Noël
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Cannes Film Festival
European Film Awards
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
150 min + 65 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
2-DVD Set
Documentary
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 2008 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Arnaud Desplechin

Written By:
Arnaud Desplechin
Emmanuel Bourdieu

Actors:
Catherine Deneuve ..... Junon
Jean-Paul Roussillon ..... Abel, Junon's husband
Anne Consigny ..... Elizabeth, their oldest child
Mathieu Amalric ..... Henri, their middle child
Melvil Poupaud ..... Ivan, their youngest child
Hippolyte Girardot ..... Claude, Elizabeth's husband
Emmanuelle Devos ..... Faunia, Henri's lover
Chiara Mastroianni ..... Sylvia, Ivan's wife
Laurent Capelluto ..... Simon, Junon's nephew, the painter cousin
Emile Berling ..... Paull, Elizabeth and Claude's son
Thomas Obled ..... Basile, Ivan and Sylvia's son
Clément Obled ..... Baptiste, Ivan and Sylvia's son
Françoise Bertin ..... Rosaimée, Abel's mother's girlfriend
Samir Guesmi ..... Spatafora, the family friend at Roubaix
Azize Kabouche ..... Doctor Zraïdi, the oncologist

Synopsis:

Arnaud Desplechin comes home for Christmas in his outrageous, daring and emotionally bountiful new movie. Catherine Deneuve is Junon, the family matriarch, who greets the news of her life-threatening illness with calm equanimity. Jean-Paul Roussillon is her wise, tender husband. Desplechin regular Mathieu Amalric is the black sheep, banished from the family by his imperious sister (Anne Consigny, both actors last seen in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who arrives with his bemused Jewish girlfriend in tow (Emmanuelle Devos). Melvil Poupaud is the most sensitive of the children, happily married to the divine Chiara Mastroianni. It's hard to miss with such a cast, but A Christmas Tale is much, much more than a good ensemble comedy. In this midwinter night's dream, unrequited love collides with bitter resentment, nostalgic longing crosses paths with abject fear, and pure hatred gives way to vivacious affection.

Late in "A Christmas Tale" Abel Vuillard (Jean-Paul Roussillon), the mirthful, patient patriarch in Arnaud Desplechin's noisy, cloying and altogether marvelous new film, reads aloud from the opening pages of Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals." His audience is his oldest child, Élizabeth (Anne Consigny), who has been complaining about the inexplicable sadness that perpetually afflicts her. (Early in the movie she offered the same complaint to her therapist.) As comfort and chastisement, Abel recites a long passage about the futility of our desire for self-knowledge and our alienation from our own experience. "We rub our ears after the fact," Nietzsche wrote, "and ask in complete surprise and embarrassment, 'What just happened?,' or even, 'Who are we really?' " "A Christmas Tale," which follows the extended Vuillard family through a few days and several lifetimes' worth of hectic emotional confusion, induces a similar state of astonishment.

Abel and Junon had two children, Joseph and Elizabeth. Victim of a rare genetic condition, Joseph's only hope was a bone marrow transplant. As they and Elizabeth were incompatible, his parents conceived a third child in the hope of saving their son. But little Henri too was unable to help his brother, and Joseph died at the age of seven.
The Vuillard family has never recovered. Many years have passed, and family relationships are more strained than ever. In particular, those between Elizabeth, authoritarian head of the family and Henri, a cynical drop out who divides his time between women and drink. After a violent argument, Elizabeth banishes her feckless brother, cutting him off from his nephew, her son Paul - a tortured adolescent beset by serious mental problems.

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 07 September, 2009.