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GreenCine Daily - ”‘Now that is a movie!’ I exclaimed to a friend on exiting this morning’s screening of Arnaud Desplechin’s Un Conte De Noël (A Christmas Story [site]).”
Glenn Kenny: “The bourgeois-dysfunctional-family-comes-together-for-a-holiday setup is one of the hoariest in any medium, but if anybody can conjure something fresh out of it, it’s Desplechin, and boy does he ever…. The creation of such a vivid, individualized group of characters and such a compelling roster of dilemmas is a staggering enough feat. But what makes this movie such a darkly exuberant feast is Desplechin’s storytelling.”
“Like so much of Desplechin’s work, this combines a largely naturalistic story with a highly idiosyncratic approach,” writes Andrew O’Hehir for Salon. “Characters address the camera directly, or narrate their letters before a photographer’s backdrop. There’s a puppet show, a children’s play, bits of romantic fantasy and mock-noir montage - depicting the abundant nightlife of Roubaix, the provincial city in northern France where the story takes place - as well as quotations from Emerson, Nietzsche and Shakespeare and snippets from Funny Face, The Ten Commandments and other films I didn’t catch…. IFC has acquired United States distribution rights, and I can only applaud the company’s courage. This won’t be an easy sell even to European audiences, and it’s not likely to win the Palme d’Or. But if I see another film all year long that prickles me, disturbs me or moves me half as much, I’ll be surprised.”
“Desplechin’s ambitious widescreen tale overflows with inescapable emotion, served both raw and endlessly reheated,” writes Lisa Nesselson for Screen Daily. “Although Desplechin takes visual delight in framing his characters and juggling elaborate social geography, this is a talky affair and some delectably forthright dialogue illuminates many scenes…. Despite entrenched animosities and unrequited longings, Desplechin finds that change is possible in A Christmas Tale, lending a perverse buoyancy to the proceedings.”… [Full Story]
