The opening scene is exceptionally violent, set like a choreography: on Vivaldi’s “Nisi Dominus” – this choice has a meaning, we will see – and without any other sound, a thirty-year-old woman, with difficulty restrained by two men, foaming of fury, in a bourgeois house, ends up succeeding in hitting his mother, who will end up in the hospital, under the eyes of his petrified little sister of regarding twelve years. Musical and thriller overture.
Christina (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), the mother, has given up a career as a great pianist to teach, while raising her three daughters, regarding which she complains bitterly by rambling nonstop. In this role to slap — sorry, because the character’s daughter did it for real and it’s unforgivable — Bruni Tedeschi does wonders. Her uncontrollable eldest daughter, Margaret, has missed out on everything, and lives off odd jobs, while she sings and plays the guitar superbly – as we will also see –, embodied with phenomenal intensity by Stéphanie Blanchoud, also co-screenwriter .
Ursula Meier filmed little, but scored a lot, from “Home” to “The Child from Above”. “The Line” designates a painted line a hundred meters around the family home, drawn by the youngest, following the legal order of removal issued to the eldest.
deadly passions
The setting, a Swiss village in French-speaking Valais, in a valley surrounded by mountains, also contributes to the grace of the film, like the religious strength of Marion, the youngest (Elli Spagnolo, wonderful too), the one who dreams of putting this family mosaic back together. shattered into a thousand pieces, while Louise, the youngest (India Hair) regarding to give birth to twins, embodies a kind of grounding, common sense that comes to balance this furious madness.
Benjamin Biolay also happens, in the role of a musician, Margaret’s ex, and well obliged to welcome her, a rare element of composure. Of the father, we will know nothing. For the rest, the men parade through the life of Christina, on the verge of becoming a grandmother, but who lives like the singing diva she never became, a false Madonna who would have sacrificed everything on the altar of her children.
“La Ligne” is already magnificently staged, scripted and interpreted, like a score without the slightest false note. This exploration of the most deadly impulses, and the effort to overcome them, makes it something rare and precious. Family, I hate you, I love you, I leave you, I find you, I mourn you, I celebrate you, I embrace you.
« Line », by Ursula Meier, with Stéphanie Blanchoud, Valérie Bruni Tedeschi, Elli Spagnolo, India Hair. (1h41).
