Movie Review - Colours of Time - Fremantle Shipping News

Or as our reviewer Bruce Menzies experienced it, Remembrance of Times Past

‘We can’t move forward if we don’t look at the past.’ This theme echoes through Cedric Klapisch’s latest film, La Venue de l’Avenir (The Arrival of the Future) – re-badged for the Anglosphere as Colours of Time.

This quintessentially French film skips seamlessly between today’s world and the late 19^th century, the fin de siècle period, as it’s become known. The new millennium is five years away as 20-year-old Adele departs the family home in Normandy on a journey to Paris. Raised by her now-deceased maternal grandparents, she embarks upon a quest to find her mother. After a bumpy ride in a rustic horse-driven cart, Adele transfers to a riverboat where she exchanges pleasantries with two likely lads, one a painter, the other a photographer.

Fast forward to the present, the family home has been deserted and locked since 1944. A developer wants to buy the property. The inheritance is complicated. Lawyers track down scores of beneficiaries. From among their ranks, a quartet of distant cousins is appointed to visit the property and negotiate a settlement.

This Gang of Four beat their way through the undergrowth. A local helper uses an angle grinder to cut the padlock. Inside the house, amidst the dust and the cobwebs, is a treasure trove of photographs and memorabilia.

Back in Paris, Adele uses the address of a lawyer to track down her mother. The initial encounter is daunting.Adele takes flight and meets up with the two young men. A white sheet is hung discreetly as they share a room on the upper level of a bawdy public house.

Love – as it often is in French movies – is in the air; a lingering potential for hearts broken and then remade. Nothing I found mawkish, simply tender and touching. And though the film is a family history exploration, with elements of intrigue and discovery, it is in essence a study in contrasts. In 1895, old technology is represented by the paintbrush, new technology by the camera. In the French countryside, humans and buildings are scarce. In Paris, it’s another story (no pun intended). As the riverboat glides down the Seine, Adele and her companions crane their necks to take in the modern magnificence of the Eiffel Tower.

Yet when the camera cuts to the 21^st century, our audience lets out a collective gasp. Masses of people pouring out of a train station, shiny towers of glass and steel, and the crushing vibe of relentless noise and movement. A stark reminder of 130 years of ‘progress’, not all of it nourishing.

For our intrepid quartet, hitherto unknown to one another, they are drawn together and enticed into the past. Who was this Adele, their common ancestor? And what was her parentage? What is the family legacy and what can be done about it?

On another temporal plane, Adele has some of the same questions. And who are these artists she encounters and how are they connected to her mother – or to her?

I drowned happily in this warm, beautifully-photographed film. The acting is universally delicious. The camera loves Adele (Suzanne Lindon) and I couldn’t argue with the camera. Young Seb (Abraham Wapler) is a treat, as are the older members of the cast – some of whom will be familiar to the lovers of French movies.

As the dear departed David Stratton might’ve said ‘I’m giving this one 4½ stars’.

Screening at Luna Leederville, Windsor + Luna on SX from July 23.

*By Bruce Menzies

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