My favorite season

Movie
German title	My favorite season
Original title	Ma season préférée
Country of production	France
original language	French
Publishing year	1993
length	122 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	André Téchiné
script	Pascal Bonitzer , ; André Téchiné
production	Alain Sarde
music	Philippe Sarde
camera	Thierry Arbogast
cut	Martine Giordano
occupation
	Catherine Deneuve : Emilie; Daniel Auteuil : Antoine; Marthe Villalonga : Berthe; Jean-Pierre Bouvier : Bruno; Chiara Mastroianni : Anne; Carmen Chaplin : Khadija; Anthony Prada : Lucien;

My favorite season (original title: Ma Saison préférée ) is a feature film by the French director André Téchiné from 1993. The drama is based on an original Téchinés script and was produced by the film studios DA Films, Les Films Alain Sarde and TF1 Films Productions.

action

The film is divided into four acts :

The departure

The old widow Berthe had to pay tribute to her old age. When she collapsed on her remote farm, she was only discovered by her postman. Her daughter Emilie, who runs a prosperous law firm in Blagnac with her husband Bruno , then takes her into her home. Berthe dislikes the ostentatious property with swimming pool , which she also lets her daughter know, who the first night finds her mother talking to herself in the garden. Berthe hates any kind of care and pours out her heart in the self-talk. Over the next few days, Emilie visits her brother Antoine, a successful neurosurgeon , at his place of work in the hospital. The last time they saw each other was three years ago. Emilie tells him about her mother's stroke , but the selfish and easily irritable Antoine sees her visit as an attempt to put the frail mother on him. The siblings quarrel, but they can make up again, and Emilie invites her brother to her house for Christmas . Emilie mentions to her husband that she met her brother by chance in Toulouse and invited her for Christmas. Bruno, who doesn't like the rebellious brother-in-law, is stunned by Emilie's indulgence. At the father's funeral, Antoine had insulted Emilie and her husband, who had sworn never to invite her brother back to their house.

The faux pas

On Christmas Eve, Antoine arrives at Emilie and her husband's house. Emilie jokingly admonishes him to behave while she leaves for midnight mass with Bruno and their biological daughter Anne, who is also studying law like her parents . In the toilet, Antoine talks to himself and admonishes himself not to get carried away and to spoil the evening. When he wanders around the house in search of his mother's room, he meets Lucien and Khadija in a flash. Lucien is the adopted son of Emilie and Bruno, who works in a local nightclub. The African-born Khadija is Emilie's legal assistant and dreams of social advancement. Antoine promises not to tell anything about Lucien and Khadija and a little later finds his mother's room. Berthe complains to him about life with her cumbersome daughter and wishes to return home to her farm.

The evening, which begins peacefully with a Christmas dinner together, escalates into an argument when Berthe, in the presence of Emilie and Antoine, asks Bruno to help her draw up a will . She never learned to write herself. The impulsive Antoine feels provoked by Emilie's husband, who calls him a "bungler" and a "coward". The men beat each other, Emilie tearfully separates them. While Bruno goes to bed angry, the injured Antoine tells his sister about a dream in which he destroyed the porcelain clock on the fireplace. Antoine and Berthe leave the house that same evening. Desperate Emilie then deliberately knocks the clock on the fireplace to the ground. A few hours later, Bruno and Emilie also parted ways. Both are cold and numb in their marriage. Her husband accuses her of being unable to desire or love. Emilie detests what has become of the two. Anne, who listens to everything, fled to Khadija.

The next step

After leaving her daughter's house on Christmas Eve, Berthe lives alone in the yard again. In the summer while picking cherries, she collapses again. Emilie, who has since moved into her own apartment in Toulouse, then meets Antoine again in a café. After this news, Antoine ran excitedly to the toilet. In conversations with himself, he admonishes himself not to show his joy at the separation from Emilie and Bruno too much. When he comes back, Emilie has felt faint. Antoine takes care of them and they both decide to send their mother to an old people's home.

Berthe agrees to move into the old people's home, but first she cuts the throats of her chickens. On the drive to the nursing home, Emilie, Antoine and Berthe indulge in old memories. They drive to a nearby river where Berthe often went on excursions with her husband and children. Antoine fulfills a childhood dream and bathes in the river, in which he was not allowed to bathe as a small child for fear of meningitis .

When the two brought their mother to the old people's home, Emilie tells her brother that she feels superfluous in life, just like her father. She lives very secluded, whereupon her brother decides to see her every day from now on. In the evening he gives her a sleeping pill and goes to the nightclub where Lucien works. There he meets Khadija and Anne, who has since given up her law degree and works in a music business. The four go to a café where Lucien manages to win back Khadija, who had separated from him. Meanwhile, Anne reveals to her uncle the weakness of his family - Antoine, Emilie and Berthe are both unable to commit. In the early hours of the morning, alarmed by a lament that an old woman has sung, Antoine checks on Emilie in his apartment. In his mind, the image of his dead sister, who has thrown herself from the balcony, circles, but she sleeps safely in her bed.

The return

Antoine tries to convince his sister to move in with him. Emilie is shy. She is of the opinion that it is not normal for her age for sister and brother to live together and that she has no right to do so. She is afraid of her brother because they were once way too close. While Antoine tries hard to convince her of his plan, problems arise with her mother again. Berthe refuses to leave her room in the old people's home. The house rules do not stipulate that the old lady is served in the room. When Antoine and Emilie visit her, Berthe's health has visibly deteriorated. She can no longer recognize temporal connections and had dreams that Antoine had an accident and that her house was burned down by a lightning strike. Emilie and Antoine then decide to take their mother out of the old people's home. Medical tests later show that Berthe injured a brain vessel in one of her accidents. Antoine informs Emilie, who then gets involved in sex with a complete stranger younger man in the hospital garden. Emilie flees to the house in Blagnac and is visited by Antoine in the evening, who, when she refuses to let him in, uses force to gain entry. Emilie beats her brother when he tries to take her pulse and warns him not to touch her again. Emilie accuses him of having deliberately been inactive for so long and of ignoring her mother. Antoine admits she didn't get used to the idea that she might die. At the same time he accuses his sister that she would love it for her self-confidence if her brother felt a deep shame. Antoine reminds Emilie of an incident from her childhood and throws her in front of her to hide behind the right. Emilie hates her mother because Berthe doesn't love her enough; not as she would have liked.

Antoine leaves the house and a little later tries to take her own life. He throws himself from the balcony of his apartment, two stories down, and breaks his foot, much to Emilie's chagrin. When the two of them visit the hospital, the seriously ill Berthe sees her suspicions confirmed. In fact, Antoine had an accident. She dies a little later only to indict her children shortly before her death. She would have liked a third child that she would have taken in with her.

At the funeral , brother and sister comfort each other over the loss of their mother. And one of Berthe's premonitions is confirmed again. In fact, the roof of Antoine and Emilie's parents' house was damaged in a thunderstorm , a neighbor reported. After the funeral, Antoine, Emilie, Bruno, Lucien, Anne and Kadijah meet in the house in Blagnac. A remark made by Khadijah about winter accidentally leads you into a conversation about your favorite season of the year. Bruno loves autumn because it was always the beginning of something for him, the beginning of the year of his life, the beginning of school and the beginning of his love for Emilie. Lucien loves spring because this is the time of year when women begin to defoliate. Antoine and Emilie love the summer. When Antoine's departure, you ask if anyone could sing, and Emilie agrees to recite a song. She had learned as a child while she was waiting for the holidays at school to see Antoine again:

But where is the friend I'm looking for everywhere

at dawn my longing begins to grow.

And when the night disappears, my calling is in vain.

I see his tracks, I know him near me.

I feel it wherever the dew rises from the earth

where a flower smells and where the golden grain sways.

I feel it in the balmy air that caresses me tenderly,

that I breathe and enjoy with delight.

And I hear his voice

that unites with the song of summer.

History of origin

My favorite season is based on an original screenplay by the director André Téchiné, which he adapted for the screen together with the screenwriter and actor Pascal Bonitzer . Téchiné was able to sign Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil for the leading roles . After Gérard Pirès ' crime drama Die Unfesselten (1975) and Claude Lelouch Alone for Two (1979), it was the third collaboration between the two actors. Catherine Deneuve's biological daughter Chiara Mastroianni and Carmen Chaplin , who made their film debut with My Favorite Season, can also be seen in other roles . The film was shot in the southern French city of Toulouse , in the Haute-Garonne department .

reception

André Téchiné's family drama premiered on May 14, 1993 as the opening film of the Cannes International Film Festival . The film was rated by critics as a demanding and rich character study of two siblings, described as a highlight of the cinema year and as one of Téchiné's best directorial works. In addition to the unspectacular staging, the acting ensemble was also praised, in particular the intense play of the two main actors Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil. Comparisons have been made with Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (1978), in which Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann can be seen as estranged mother and daughter, and with John Cassavetes ' Love Streams (1984), in which the American director and his wife Gena Rowlands acts as siblings. My favorite season received similarly good reviews when it was released in German theaters on February 3, 1994.

The drama only celebrated its release in the USA three years after its premiere in Cannes. My favorite season of the year only managed to find an American film distributor with Filmopolis Pictures after the great success of André Téchiné's subsequent film Wilde Rosen (1994) . While Wilde Rosen opened in US cinemas on May 10, 1995, My Favorite Season followed on April 19, 1996. The sibling study also received excellent reviews overseas and grossed $ 760,856 by August 25, 1996 .

Reviews

"In his sensitive sibling portrait, André Téchiné deals with the drifting apart of the generations. With Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil, the creme de la crème of the French actresses is at his side with perfect performances. A noble cinema experience." ( Focus: film )
"Téchiné, who co-wrote the script with Pascal Bonitzer, drives Deneuve and Auteuil to excellence and directs in a straightforward, frillless style that favors the actors and draws our attention to their complicated relationship. Heard full of captivating dialogue and surprising insights 'Ma Saison Préférée' on the kind of psychological dramas that are far too rare. " ( San Francisco Chronicle )
"With the nuanced and committed acting performances of Deneuve and Auteuil, 'My Favorite Season' turns out to be a first-class research into the mysterious sibling bond. This is French filmmaking at its height - intimate, funny, sad and immeasurably accessible." ( Spirituality & Health )
"Narrated in four chapters each assigned to a season and an epilogue. The good acting performances are undermined by an overloaded script and an elegiac staging, so that the desired psychopathology of everyday life turns into simple middle-class kitsch." ( Lexicon of International Films )

Remarks

To illustrate the bond between the two main characters Emilie and Antoine before the actual film plot begins, an old painting showing a pair of Siamese twins can be seen during the fade-in of the opening credits .

Critics speculated that Téchiné Catherine Deneuve's film character named after Emily Brontë (1818-1848), the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and author of the work Sturmhöhe . In fact, the director was familiar with the work of the Brontë sisters - his fourth directorial work in 1979 was the drama The Brontë sisters with Isabelle Adjani , Marie-France Pisier and Isabelle Huppert .

The US distribution title is My Favorite Season .

The theme music is the African song Malaika , sung by Angélique Kidjo .

Awards

When it premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1993, André Téchiné's family drama was considered one of the favorites for the Palme d' Or , but had to admit defeat to the two winning films The Piano by Jane Campion and Farewell, My Concubine by Hong Kong director Chen Kaige . At the award ceremony of the most important French film award, the César , My Favorite Season received seven nominations, including for the best film of the year, but could not prevail against Alain Resnai's comedy Smoking / No Smoking . In 1996 the American Boston Society of Film Critics Awards named Téchinés Film the best foreign film production.