Home - Directed by Ursala Meier (French – subtitles)
Marthe and Michel’s family of five live off a highway. Not one that tails away from a slip road – there is little space between their house and the road. As the road has been un-used for some years, this hasn’t been a problem. The road becomes an extension of their life as the space is utilised for various sports, games and leisure activities that indulge the free spirits of this family when they’re not at work or school. Yet there is always the creeping spectre of their lifestyle being rudely shattered with the motorway once again set to host traffic. Reports of work lorries, some way down the road, are wearily investigated and a local roads based station ‘Radio Highway’ becomes a harbinger of doom when it anticipates, in excited tones, the re-opening of the motorway.
If Radio Highway’s voice reeks of propaganda on behalf of the petrol heads, the element of ‘occupation’ is suggested by the appearance of road workers, all orange nylon work trousers and heavy boots, who descend to erect road guards and dispassionately move anything on the road owned by the family.
Up to this point we have seen a happy go lucky family living in their own idyll but with the onset of traffic and noise pollution, characteristics of the family give out and eccentricites are exposed. One of the daughters Judith, a stoic, thrash metal listener who seems to predominately sun bathe elicits honks from passing motorists. The family begin to get viewed with freakish curiosity. Cracks open up. Basic things like setting off to work or school become fraught operations.
Michel’s temperament often threatens to boil over in these circumstances so when he bursts in on the bedroom of a now communally huddled up family to declare ‘It’s over’, things take a darker turn into a living entombment. This is an original ‘anti-road movie’ film on what happens to a family when the outside world starts to unwelcomingly encroach on a family’s space.
If Radio Highway’s voice reeks of propaganda on behalf of the petrol heads, the element of ‘occupation’ is suggested by the appearance of road workers, all orange nylon work trousers and heavy boots, who descend to erect road guards and dispassionately move anything on the road owned by the family.
Up to this point we have seen a happy go lucky family living in their own idyll but with the onset of traffic and noise pollution, characteristics of the family give out and eccentricites are exposed. One of the daughters Judith, a stoic, thrash metal listener who seems to predominately sun bathe elicits honks from passing motorists. The family begin to get viewed with freakish curiosity. Cracks open up. Basic things like setting off to work or school become fraught operations.
Michel’s temperament often threatens to boil over in these circumstances so when he bursts in on the bedroom of a now communally huddled up family to declare ‘It’s over’, things take a darker turn into a living entombment. This is an original ‘anti-road movie’ film on what happens to a family when the outside world starts to unwelcomingly encroach on a family’s space.
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