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| French poster artwork for the drama film And If We All Lived Together? / Et Si On Vivait Tous Ensemble? |
Self-Sufficient
Seniors by Linh
As the world’s ageing population increases, film-makers
have been producing films that reflect and explore the changing attitudes to
older people and their lifestyles. In recent years, the Mike Leigh-directed
film Another Year, the action
thriller Red directed by Robert
Schwentke and John Madden’s popular drama comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, are just a few examples of films
finding different ways to represent older people. The aforementioned films have
transcended the various stereotypes of the older person, and French director
Stéphane Robelin has contributed to the growing list of films about older
people.
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FRIENDLY
FEAST: Jean (Guy Bedos), Albert (Pierre Richard), Claude
(Claude Rich), Jeanne (Jane Fonda) and Annie (Geraldine Chaplin) share laughs
and stories in the film And If We All
Lived Together?. Image: Les Films De La Butte, BAC Films.
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Robelin’s latest film And
If We All Lived Together? (Et Si On
Vivait Tous Ensemble?) is his second feature following his debut film Real Movie in 2004, and features a cast
of well-known and much-loved French actors, as well as American actor Jane
Fonda and German actor Daniel Brühl. Set in contemporary Paris, the film
revolves around a group of five ageing friends who have known each other for
over forty years, and they decide to move in together.
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ELDERS
ESCAPE: Jean (Guy Bedos), Albert (Pierre Richard), Jeanne (Jane
Fonda) and Annie (Geraldine Chaplin) sneak Claude (Claude Rich) out of the
nursing home in the film And If We All
Lived Together? Image: Les Films De La Butte, BAC Films.
|
Political activist Jean (Guy Bedos) and his wife and
former psychiatrist Annie (Geraldine Chaplin) hold a dinner party and invite
their friends, the photographer Claude (Claude Rich), the Holocaust survivor
Albert (Pierre Richard) and his wife the retired philosophy lecturer Jeanne
(Jane Fonda). During the dinner, Jean jokingly suggests that they all move into
his large house and live the rest of their lives together. Shortly after,
Claude has a mild heart attack while taking the stairs to his lady friend’s
apartment, and his son Bernard (Bernard Malaka) puts him in an aged care home.
Jean, Annie, Jeanne and Albert visit Claude, and are appalled at the sad and
lonely faces of the elderly residents and the inadequate facilities, so they
sneak him out of the nursing home and into Jean and Annie’s house.
The number of residents in the communal home begins to
increase, with Albert bringing his Briard dog Oscar to live with him because
his daughter wants to send it to the animal shelter; and an ethnology student
named Dirk (Daniel Brühl) is hired as Oscar’s carer/walker before deciding to
live in the house in order to study the five seniors for his thesis.
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CANINE
CARER: Daniel Brühl relaxes on set with the Briard dog who
plays Oscar in the film And If We All
Lived Together? Image: janefonda.com
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The film is partly character-driven with a strong
narrative, and the performances are wonderful. The secrets and memories of the
past begin to emerge as the story progresses with Jeanne hiding the severity of
her cancer from her husband Albert; and the forty year old love affair Claude
had with Jeanne and at the same time with Annie, causes a rift among the five
friends.
Guy Bedos is brilliant as the humanitarian Jean, whose
sharp mind and verve for activism is still as strong now as when he was
younger; Geraldine Chaplin still radiates warmth onscreen even as her character
Annie is gloomy, when she thinks her grandchildren are not visiting often
because they no longer love her; the womanising Claude is the comic relief and
Claude Rich brings out the sexier side of the older man; and Pierre Richard
shows vulnerability and resilience as the bon vivant Albert whose memory begins
to fade with the onset of dementia, and he keeps a journal to record his
thoughts before he could forget them, so he could read them later.
The non-French actors are equally excellent with Jane
Fonda (in fluent French with an American accent) as the feminist,
cancer-stricken Jeanne, who makes the most of her final days thinking
positively about the future and providing relationship advice to Dirk while
walking Oscar in the park. The young German actor Daniel Brühl is fabulous as
the ethnology student Dirk, who originally wanted to go to Australia to study
the lives of Aboriginal elders, but his girlfriend refuses to leave France.
After some advice from Jeanne, Dirk changes his focus to European elders and
moves into Jean and Annie’s house.
And
If We All Lived Together? is a gentle and charming little gem of
a film that does become slightly sentimental at times, but is overall an
engaging and entertaining look into older people fighting to maintain their
friendships and independence.
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SHARING
SECRETS: Jeanne (Jane Fonda) explains her terminal illness to
Dirk (Daniel Brühl) and makes him promise to carry out her funeral wishes in
the film And If We All Lived Together? Image: Les Films De La Butte, BAC
Films.
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Director:
Stéphane Robelin
Writers:
Stéphane Robelin (screenplay)
Cast: Guy
Bedos, Geraldine Chaplin, Claude Rich, Pierre Richard, Jane Fonda, Daniel
Brühl, Bernard Malaka, Gwendoline Hamon, Camino Texeira, Shemss Audat,
Stéphanie Pasterkamp, Gustave de Kervern
Producers:
Christophe Bruncher, Peter Rommel, Philippe Gompel, Aurélia Grossmann
Cinematographer: Dominique
Colin
Original
Music Composer: Jean-Philippe Verdin
Film
Editor: Patrick Wilfert
Set
Decorator: David Bersanetti
Costume
Designer: Jurgen Doering
Language:
French with English subtitles
Running
Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes
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