Product Description

In Arnaud Desplechin’s beguiling A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), Catherine Deneuve brings her legendary poise to the role of Junon, matriarch of the troubled Vuillard family, who come together at Christmas after she learns she needs a bone marrow transplant from a blood relative. That simple family reunion setup, however, can’t begin to describe the unpredictable, emotionally volatile experience of this film, an inventive, magical drama that’s equal parts merriment and melancholy. Unrequited childhood loves and blinding grudges, brutal outbursts and sudden slapstick, music, movies, and poetry, A Christmas Tale ties it all together in a marvelously messy package.

Stills from A Christmas Tale (Click for larger image)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9574 in DVD
• Brand: IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2009-12-01
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 152 minutes

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary, mult-layered film
French director Arnaud Desplechin's film works as one of the best mult-layered movies of the genre, which in many respects takes its conventions and turns them on their head. Not your feel good, holiday coming home movie but one which inverts and mischievously perverts viewer expectations and instead dares to substitute real people for the usual suspects. The first rate acting (the legendary Catherine Deneuve and the not as well known but no less talented Desplechin actors Mathieu Almaric and Emmanuelle Devos) takes a conventional genre situation - mother (Denueve) suffers from cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant - and explores the generational conflicts that afflict this family and provocatively and evocatively deals with the issues of mother love; forgiveness; sibling rivalry; grief for thwarted dreams and life changing losses, and even fidelity itself. For film lovers who enjoy characters in unconventional situations, this film will continue to reward upon future viewings. Those requiring conventional Hollywood plotting and endings should probably look elsewhere. I would add that the director is one of the best working today. One of the best films of 2008.

A Winter Night's Dream
[4.5 stars] It may be a mistake to call this a "dysfunctional family Christmas movie." The individuals of the Vuillard family have, in fact, all submitted themselves to the precise roles that will allow the family to function. And that is the real problem. Each has to contort himself, at times almost beyond human recognition, in order for things to make a certain sort of sense. There is distance in how they address each other: no "maman", no "papa", just first names all around. The system that allows this family to function even includes "Anatole," an imaginary wolf that lives in the basement. It is a well-honed system.

The mother, father, three siblings, assorted cousins and spouses that populate this family tree all have a psychic tie to a withered root, namely the firstborn son, Joseph, who died of a rare cancer at age six. Elizabeth, the oldest surviving child, complains of a grief that has no apparent source. She is the type of person we all have met at some time in our lives, someone whose main grievance is that she feels herself to be inadequately aggrieved. She completely surrenders herself to the false martyrdom of self-pity, willingly clutching each grudge to her bosom, even as it drains her of life and poisons everyone around her.

We see how Henri, the middle child, becomes Elizabeth's chosen victim, and Ivan, the youngest, tries to mollify everyone. All of this has a decidedly theatrical effect. The family members are depicted as performers just as much as the Ekdahls are in Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection, with whose first 90 minutes A CHRISTMAS TALE bears more than a passing resemblance. This masquerade also has, as a point of reference, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, both in the brief appearance of the 1935 movie on the TV screen, and in Mendelssohn's incidental music, playing on the soundtrack.

The directorial style of this film is something all its own. It uses film grammar from every era of cinema history, throwing it all into one big pot. Somehow it works. I kept thinking of Harold Bloom's assertion that "strangeness" is the quality that distinguishes lasting works of art. There is the strangeness that so assimilates us that we no longer see it as strange: Shakespeare, Griffith, Hitchcock. And there is the strangeness that cannot be assimilated: Sterne, Beckett, Buñuel.

A CHRISTMAS TALE possesses the latter variety of strangeness. You're not going to pull this out and watch it every holiday season. But you may choose to see it repeatedly for the fascinating, dreamlike dance in the interaction of its characters.

If Belle De Jour had kids. Great soundtrack (though pricey)/Criterion Features below.
A Christmas Tale
Think the opposite of everything the movie Dan in Real Life stands for with one exception, which is already saying the movie is amazing. A family gathers during Christmas time, the matriarch awaits her families bone marrow tests to see if they are a match so she can live, and the bad boy brother who has been excommunicated returns. As cliché as that sounds the only thing cliché is the title and to refer back to Dan in Real Life the only thing real is the real in that title. In keeping it real the film's complex characters have role ambiguity and viewers are left with an open ending. The only thing in Tale wrapped with a bow are the presents.
Oh, however, Dan in real life had the beautiful Juliette Binoche (also in this years amazing Flight of the Red Balloon) and Tale also has many beautiful and talented French actresses that could make any act seem classy. The cinematography is also attractive as is the score.

Speaking about the score mp3 download of the soundtrack from this very site is over three times cheaper.
A christmas tale was one of the best films of 2008 and this one of the best soundtracks.
Most of the songs are classical style but track 20 is a french/rap track.



Criterion DVD features (from crterion . com)
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Arnaud Desplechin
L'aimée, Desplechin's 2007 documentary about the selling of his family home
New documentary featuring interviews with Desplechin and actors Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve
Original theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Lopate