Reviews

After re-watching the series from the beginning and focusing on the last two seasons, a clever person should realize that whether they didn't know if that last bunch of episodes was going to be the last bunch of the season or of the whole series "Gilmore Girls" was ending its course by itself in any case. It had run all its course truly, no matter what happened with Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband leaving. Because stories have a life of its own and have characters and the actors are still there believing in it. The story wrapped up miraculously well considering how often series get badly handled in their endings. We had the chance to watch characters evolve and grow and change their relationships forever. From young mother Lane to old-school mother Emily Gilmore. Paris and Doyle decided to follow each other wherever they will end. Christopher admitted his faults and officially became Lorelai's ex-husband, which is not always bad, as a matter of fact usually marriages get better when they end. If they were ever going to produce another season, it was just going to be "Gil-less" (quoting Lorelai in episode "Presenting Lorelai Planetarium") because for 4 entire years we had watched Rory in college, which is out of Stars Hollow, yet she still entertained a strong relationship with her mother, Stars Hollow and her friends. In season 8 Rory would have been out of everything and we had to follow her wherever she was. It was going to change into a whole new series and that would've been total blasphemy, believe me. And what about Lorelai and Luke? Do we really want to see a wedding celebration and the possible creation of a new Gilmore kid? Is that really interesting by the way? Do we hear that in fairy-tales? No. They just end with the final moment of happiness and go with the famous line "And they lived happily ever after". There is nothing left to say more than that and the rest can be made up by the viewer in his mind. "Gilmore Girls" although it's a very real-world serial, there is a dazzling magic and fairytale quality to it. It's a modern fairy-tale you really need to pay attention to. With this assertion, I want to focus particularly on the tricky narrative device used in the two final episodes. Call them ellipses. The final parts of "Unto the breach" and "Bon Voyage" omit a sequence of introspective events - given the undoubtedly introspective quality of the series - happening between the night when Rory gets the proposal from Logan and a very alluring ring and the day she gets her diploma and turns down the wedding proposal, with the result of Logan totally calling their engagement off; concerning the finale, we are not to know what happens between the night when Lorelai and Luke make amends and kiss and the supposedly following hours just before dawn where Rory and Lorelai say goodbye and make a very special stop at Luke's diner for breakfast, where we learn Luke definitely gave Lorelai the real loving and supposedly also physical attention she missed for almost over a year and a half - we conclude this by observing their body languages and mellow voices - and in the shape of the gift incarnated by the necklace Liz made to match Lorelai's ocean-blue eyes. Now what is the use of doing such a thing called ellipsis? Well, the most obvious reason that comes to mind is because it's much quicker, more concise and effective, but also vague, which brings us back to making up the events by ourselves in our minds.

This movie is an example of perfect psychological drama that only the French (actually the director is Belgian) can write and direct in such an essential and powerful way.

SPOILERS FOLLOWING Focusing on two twin brothers conceived by a divorced couple, the film is a very serious study on the dynamics between a mother (Isabelle Huppert) and her two bi-ovular twin sons (Renier twins). The threesome, since the moment of the divorce, lives intimately isolated in a great house in the middle of the country in Luxembourg. The two brothers are complete adults but unemployed. The quiet one is good at fixing things in the house, the loud one is good at doing nothing but kissing and having sex with a girlfriend he sees instead of going to the university classes. Mother is distressed because she's run out of money and, encouraged by her new lover, she wants to sell the family house her ex-husband offered as a precaution for the kids to invest on a green house. Of course, the troubled son makes a violent stand and starts treating her mother really badly until she decides to go away for a period and leave the guys alone in order to make them realize they're not little boys anymore. The ex-husband is a quiet and loving man who chose to marry a second time and had a third children with an other woman after Pascale (Isabelle Huppert) left him. For she is a woman, she is not able to confront her two male grown-up children (there is sexual tension between them also) and the ghost of her ex-husband. Her new lover doesn't want to interfere and draws back, leaving her alone. Pascale doesn't want her ex-husband to show his face and interfere in her personal relationship with the boys, but when she elopes she announces him that it's time that he takes care of them because she is exhausted and wants a new life. The father avenges and refuses to go and keep an eye on them because he thinks they're mature enough. He couldn't be more wrong! As the boys are home alone, their relationship suddenly cracks and in a moment of foolish and immature rage, the blond one fights him until leaving him unconscious. As soon as he realizes what he's done, he calls their father but he prefers escaping instead of confronting the family. When the family is reunited, in the end, we are left unable to know what are the conditions of the hospitalized brother (he could be dead or alive, we are not given any clue for this) and mother/father/child have their violent climax moment where the troubled son blames her mother for divorcing and ruining his family life. The father simply explains that things were not meant to keep them together and Thierry eventually moves on and grows. The last sequence is a series of shots in the house as it is emptied and sold to new owners. We move on the country roads near the house backwards as if Thierry's family history was to be removed necessarily.

The movie is very dramatic although the real dramatic moment comes in the end as a truly unexpected punch in your stomach. Some may find it too educational and deprived of visual and inventive power, but that's not the intention. Frnech movies are usually quite simple and classic and focusing on psychology and more thoughtful themes. Each performance is worthy of applause, especially Jeremie Renier (already seen in another great performance a few years ago in CRIMINAL LOVERS by Francois Ozon) and the evergreen Isabelle Huppert.