Role call

>> Je rentre à la maison is an elegant curtain call

by JASON BOGDANERIS

Occasionally in movies, the play’s still the thing. Je rentre à la maison, from eccentric 94-year-old director Manoel de Oliveira, uses the play-within-a-film device to great effect in this remarkable feature.
We first glimpse Gilbert (Michel Piccoli) on stage playing a king in the throes of death. As the actor takes his bows, in the wings are sombre-faced men in suits awaiting their cue to deliver some devastating news. Piccoli’s wife, son and daughter-in-law have all been killed in a car crash. In keeping with the film’s unsentimental tone, we immediately flash forward to an undetermined later date, after the grieving process has presumably run its course.

We find Piccoli living in dignified isolation, racing remote-control cars with his grandson, doing Shakespeare, or simply luxuriating in a new pair of shoes. His agent, assuming he must be lonely and unfulfilled, presses him to cash in on his fame and prestige as a great thespian. First he crudely proposes a May-December romance with a younger actress, then tries to get him to star in a shlocky TV movie. Piccoli finds both prospects cynical and demeaning insults to his personal and professional integrity.
When an admiring American film director (John Malkovich) comes calling with a part Piccoli really cherishes, things begin to unravel. Forced to learn his lines in English and on very short notice, Piccoli’s breakdown mirrors that of the king he had played. Unlike his performance however, Piccoli’s own decline occurs with a mumbled whimper instead of a thunderous bang.

Thankfully, the art imitating life motif never becomes clichéd. Despite the Euro-pacing and very little action, the film remains mysteriously engaging. Long silent scenes in the streets of Paris from behind store windows or transparent café walls suggest a mirror image of Jacques Tati’s classic comedy Playtime—the same solitary figure wading through a lonely urban landscape. Instead of grabbing you by the scruff of the neck, this film seeps in like a penetrating stare. :

Je rentre à la maison opens Friday, Jan. 18