Summer Hours (L’Heure d'été)
Part of the BAMcinematek series Focus on IFC Films
Sat, Mar 7 at 7:15pm
Directed by Olivier Assayas
With Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling
(2008) 103min
Assayas returns to the style of ensemble pieces like Late August, Early September to craft one of his best films. Three siblings reunite after their mother dies and leaves behind a country house overflowing with valuable art objects and antiques (on loan from the Musée d’Orsay). With its richly-detailed script and nuanced performances by Binoche and Berling, Summer Hours illuminates the private experience of loss, as well as the practical concerns of settling an estate, with remarkable insight. Sneak preview. Opens in NY in April.
Time Out on Summer Hours
"Assayas’s most fully satisfying film for some while, this is a warm, wise drama about the tensions and mysteries of family life." More
Variety on Summer Hours
"A family ensembler of utter simplicity, Oliver Assayas' Summer Hours is a salutory (and belated) reminder that, as with his earlier Cold Water and Late August, Early September, some of this writer-director's best work comes in modest packages." More