Vacation for a week
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Vacation for a week |
| Original title | Une semaine de vacances |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1980 |
| length | 102 / German 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bertrand Tavernier |
| script |
Marie-Françoise Hans Bertrand Tavernier Colo Tavernier |
| production | Alain Sarde |
| music | Pierre Papadiamandis |
| camera | Pierre-William Glenn |
| cut | Armand Psenny |
| occupation | |
| |
The French feature film Holidays for a Week ( Une semaine de vacances ) was made in 1980 under the direction of Bertrand Tavernier . The work ran in 1980 in the competition for the Palme d'Or in Cannes. Nathalie Baye was nominated for the César for Best Actress in 1981.
action
31 year old Laurence is a teacher. One morning she had a nervous breakdown on her way to work. Sabouret, a doctor friend, writes her on sick leave for a week. She struggles with her work, is disappointed with the uniformity of her students and doesn't know what to do next in her life. The laconic manner of her partner Pierre, even if he loves her, does not help her in this situation. During this time she evades his tenderness and also casts off her brother. She prefers to talk to her colleague Anne. She befriends Mancheron, the jovial father of an insubordinate student. She prematurely breaks off the visit of her powerless parents. She cannot answer whether she will ever want to have her own child. Someone invites them to a meal, which is attended by his old school colleague Descombes. They talk about insights and experiences with students and other teachers. Finally Laurence realizes that she really does enjoy being a teacher, and so after the week of “vacation” she returns to school with renewed confidence. However, her colleague Anne is giving up teaching.
About the film
Vacation for a week is also a film about Lyon. It shows a city that is populous enough to be a metropolis, but small enough to allow casual encounters with acquaintances. Philippe Noiret is again playing the character of Michel Descombes, who he played in Tavernier's The Watchmaker of St. Paul (1974), a film that also takes place in Lyon, the director's birthplace.
Bertrand Tavernier addresses the hidden conflicts of teachers. Up until then, education had hardly been a subject in French film. The director stated that he makes films to learn. During the preparations, he interviewed numerous students who had their say in the film and teachers. His co-author Marie-Françoise Hans had been a French teacher for twelve years, her book Esquisse pour une jeune fille formed the basis of the script. Some lesson scenes are woven into the plot by means of flashbacks. The drama is less about the maladjustment of a teacher than about a much more general weariness that everyone can feel at some point, a form of existential fear that is difficult to grasp. Tavernier spoke of "a moment when you no longer feel like chasing after things, but would rather stop them and take the time to look at them."
French reviews
According to Le Monde , cameraman Glenn managed to capture the light of Lyon, the special atmosphere of this city of secret beauty. Tavernier shows how cinema can take reality into account without forcing it to be demonstrated. Le Nouvel Observateur found it remarkable that there was no connecting place, no continuous thought in the amount of information and considerations that Tavernier let pass by in the dialogues and images. “Children, parents, teachers and supporting characters are perceived with an intelligence that is completely free and penetrating. This film is at the level of an essay, a writing, and yet it is entirely a film. The filmmaker Tavernier knows how to bring us into contact in a few seconds with what constitutes what is individual and irreplaceable for each of the filmed people. ”And Le Point :“ Neither preacher nor technocrat, Tavernier casts his tender look at the misery of the educators of the false myopic, sees the things hidden behind things. The fighter for a good cause who is otherwise inherent in him has also taken a vacation. A kind of fraternal agreement, of inexplicable serenity, lies over this chronicle of a fading consciousness. The teachers, usually locked in their problems like redskins in the face of extinction, are given a human face here. "
La Revue du Cinéma described the work as a “complex development path from doubt to certainty. Not a blissful certainty owed to any belief, but a measured, conscious certainty that can only come from the depths of ourselves. "The doubt that Laurence believes in the uselessness of her actions is not an isolated case, and the film fit perfectly into the sociological situation of France. Télérama similarly praised: “Bertrand Tavernier's originality lies in not depicting educational problems in a didactic way, but in breaking them through all the characters, transforming them into filigree, everyday feelings.” The practice of doubting is a necessary adventure. “One thing is obvious to Laurence: nothing preconceived, no system. Beyond institutionalized power relations,everyonemust and can live hisorher life. ”According to L'Avant-Scène Cinéma ,specialists in teaching have too many certainties, but Tavernier has doubts above all. In any case, he gets to the heart of the matter, he lets the ink flow freely and dialogues flow freely.
Positif spoke of “glamorous cages” . What can be seen is the direct recording of a conflicted present. This documentary approach makes the film, free of didactics, correspondingly political. The word is essential, because Tavernier has in his films resumed the tradition that was predominant in the work of Marcel Carné and partly in Jean Renoir . The characters spoke less to their interlocutors than that their dialogues served primarily as a vehicle for information aimed at the “viewer-consumers”. In doing so, he said, it has often become abundantly clear: "It is not necessary to put a point on an i if it is a capital i." There are still a few too many of these points for a week even during holidays .
German reviews
The lexicon of international film saw a subtle portrait of a woman fluctuate “between restrained, subtle chamber play and lavish, entertaining large-scale production”. However, the film fails to bring individual history together with social criticism. Cinema similarly called the portrait “warm-hearted”, but “without a real punchline” and noted an indecisive vacillation “between sensitive study and theses cinema”.
Web links
- Holiday for a week in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Vacation for a week in the dictionary of international films
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Jean-Pierre Jeancolas: Sous les pavés? In: Positif , July 1980, pp. 104-105.
- ↑ a b Jacques Goimard: Study uses vacances . In: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, pp. 5-6
- ↑ Michel Perez in Le Matin , June 6, 1980. Quoted in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Jacques Siclier in Le Monde of May 20, 1980. Quoted in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Quotation in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Michel Flacon in Le Point , June 2, 1980. Quoted in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Hubert Desrues in La Revue du Cinéma , June 1980. Quoted in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Christine de Montalvon in Télérama , June 4, 1980. Quoted in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 62
- ↑ Jacques Goimard: Study uses vacances . In: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma No. 253, October 1, 1980, p. 5
- ^ Lexicon of International Films, Volume D – F, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-16357-8 , p. 1559
- ^ Holidays for one week on Cinema.de, accessed on June 4, 2011