The Guardians (2017)
(Les gardiennes)
Country: SW/FR/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 138m
Director: Xavier Beauvois
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry
Synopsis:
With both sons and and son-in-law away at the front, the family farm must make do with its womenfolk: the mother and daughter (father seems to do precious little). The mother hires an orphan of state to help from the harvest onward, and she is so satisfactory that she is kept on permanently. However, when the younger son comes home on leave an attachment grows which takes its course unperturbed, until the arrival of American soldiers prompts the mother to take unjust action.
Review:
Shorn of situating detail (a few bare years are all we have for intertitles), and declining to do so much as introduce its cast of characters, Beauvois's film contains handsome compositions of deep French countryside but holds each shot for about two and a half times as long as necessary, hence an absurd running time. As in Of Gods and Men, it is the accumulation of quotidian detail that accounts for much, for the dialogue would not fill ten pages. We are presented with a cheerless existence, as the women perform backbreaking work while awaiting potentially dreadful news of their loved ones; the only trouble is, we are asked to take so much on trust, what with the blank, mute expressions of his characters, and the fact that everything is so picturesquely rustic and the costumes apparently fresh from wardrobe. The wolf hardly seems to be at the door, and the final scene appears to echo that of Paths of Glory while saying the exact opposite.
(Les gardiennes)
Country: SW/FR/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 138m
Director: Xavier Beauvois
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry
Synopsis:
With both sons and and son-in-law away at the front, the family farm must make do with its womenfolk: the mother and daughter (father seems to do precious little). The mother hires an orphan of state to help from the harvest onward, and she is so satisfactory that she is kept on permanently. However, when the younger son comes home on leave an attachment grows which takes its course unperturbed, until the arrival of American soldiers prompts the mother to take unjust action.
Review:
Shorn of situating detail (a few bare years are all we have for intertitles), and declining to do so much as introduce its cast of characters, Beauvois's film contains handsome compositions of deep French countryside but holds each shot for about two and a half times as long as necessary, hence an absurd running time. As in Of Gods and Men, it is the accumulation of quotidian detail that accounts for much, for the dialogue would not fill ten pages. We are presented with a cheerless existence, as the women perform backbreaking work while awaiting potentially dreadful news of their loved ones; the only trouble is, we are asked to take so much on trust, what with the blank, mute expressions of his characters, and the fact that everything is so picturesquely rustic and the costumes apparently fresh from wardrobe. The wolf hardly seems to be at the door, and the final scene appears to echo that of Paths of Glory while saying the exact opposite.
(Les gardiennes)
Country: SW/FR/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 138m
Director: Xavier Beauvois
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry
Synopsis:
With both sons and and son-in-law away at the front, the family farm must make do with its womenfolk: the mother and daughter (father seems to do precious little). The mother hires an orphan of state to help from the harvest onward, and she is so satisfactory that she is kept on permanently. However, when the younger son comes home on leave an attachment grows which takes its course unperturbed, until the arrival of American soldiers prompts the mother to take unjust action.
Review:
Shorn of situating detail (a few bare years are all we have for intertitles), and declining to do so much as introduce its cast of characters, Beauvois's film contains handsome compositions of deep French countryside but holds each shot for about two and a half times as long as necessary, hence an absurd running time. As in Of Gods and Men, it is the accumulation of quotidian detail that accounts for much, for the dialogue would not fill ten pages. We are presented with a cheerless existence, as the women perform backbreaking work while awaiting potentially dreadful news of their loved ones; the only trouble is, we are asked to take so much on trust, what with the blank, mute expressions of his characters, and the fact that everything is so picturesquely rustic and the costumes apparently fresh from wardrobe. The wolf hardly seems to be at the door, and the final scene appears to echo that of Paths of Glory while saying the exact opposite.