While the Easter holidays are over, a young girl named Cécile and her brother Pierre return to the family home. There they found their grandfather Léon, an old communist activist who had shaken Lenin's hand. Caring little for their parents, fervent naturalists, they preferred to focus their attention on their grandfather who shared his activist memories with them.
The Swiss cinema is cerebral ,intellectual , not very accessible and Patricia Moraz's work is no exception to the rule ; this one my put off some viewers for its lack of plot ; it's more a chronicle : the end of an activist life for the commie grandpa , the closing down of a movie theater -there was a crisis in the European cinema in the mid-seventies when the TV sets exponentially arrived in homes -
This was the last decade for giant Charles Vanel whose career encompassed almost the whole 20th century,from the silent age to the late eighties ,including works known all around the world ("le salaire de la peur" ,"les diaboliques" "to catch a thief");he was 88 in 1980,ten years older than in his "lost way" which has two meanings:it may deal with horology mechanism but it may mean that his ideals were not fulfilled : although he shaked Lenin's hand, although he organizes his funeral, although he laicizes his granddaughter's poem , it's no sure that there will be one man to carry on with the fight :Angelo who's supposed to read the short speech is not present for the funeral;and although they sing "l'internationale" , they frighten the children and the son reproaches his daddy for not letting him bury "properly " ("religiously" that is ) him.
For the grandchildren , the death of the grandpa and the "adventures" he used to tell them , the imminent closure of the movie theater, may epitomize childhood's end ;but they take refuge in their imaginary planet (which oddly reminds you of Robert Parrish 's "journey to the far side of the sun " 1969 in which all was reversed ,like in a mirror)
The parents , taxidermists , work with death in their way ;hence the admirable last picture ;Delphine Seyrig , a feminist activist is cast against type ,staying in the background most of the time ; she takes a back seat to Magali Noel ,who embodies life .
