QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN

Based on a novel written by Christophe Boltanski (nephew of visual artist Christian Boltanski) about his own family. Swiss director Lionel Baier’s latest feature takes place almost in its entirety during the student protests that rocked France and the world in 1968. Nine-year-old boy (Ethan Chimienti) is extremely excited to be confined with his two uncles, two grandparents and one great-grandmother in a shabby mansion crammed with books and posters, and located in a posh Paris district. The intense family intimacy and colourful environment are a child’s dream-come-true, even if he cannot grasp the enormity of the events taking place just outside their doorstep.

This is a story to be taken with a pinch of salt. The developments – often narrated in voiceover – are based on a book, which in turn is based on the childhood memories of a grown-up (the small boy is Christophe Boltanski’s proxy). And as such, these events are unreliable. The movie freely navigates between reality, imagination and allegory. A cat comes to symbolise such elusiveness. The boy is convinced that a feline is meowing below from floorboards. The adults provide him with an answer of little comfort: “maybe the cat is alive, maybe he’s dead, maybe he’s both”.

The parents drop the boy off so that they can join the revolutionary student movement, which promised to turn capitalism, consumerism and American imperialism inside out. Grandpa (Michel Blanc) and grandma (Dominique Reymond) are the lynchpins of the story. He is a respected doctor, and the one most willing to engage with the curious little boy. She is the most pragmatic family member, who arranges the sales of her son’s paintings inside their family car. The two uncles (William Lebghil and Aurélien Gabrielli) are two indolent intellectuals, inclined to leave the most vital political activities to the other members of the family. Odessa-born, Jewish great-grandma (Liliane Rovère) is the big matriarch.

Baier sets out to denounce the authoritarianism and also the oppressive tactics of the police. The CRS, the general reserve of the French National Police, are repeatedly compared to Hitler’s SS. The family are indignant that the television reported on three wounded CRS officers, while not not disclosing the number of students who encountered the same fate. The protesters are being “dehumanised”, grandpa claims. The story climaxes when a very unexpected guest makes a surprise visit to the family.

This is a film with so much historical and political capital that it might confound the majority of viewers. I have a reasonably knowledge of the events of May 1968, and I still struggled to follow the story. For example, the film assumes that viewers “remember what Pompidou said”, yet I have no idea as to what that might have been. Likewise, I don’t understand the relevance of the Jewish and the Odessa connections (which eventually acquire a significant dimension towards the end of the story).

Poor comprehensibility isn’t the only issue affecting The Safe House. The script is so contrived that it prevents actors from giving their best. Child actor Chimienti is cute as button yet stiff as a board. The story lacks pathos and humour, with the comedic devices falling flat on their face (they include eating sardines with whipped cream, sticking a spoon in the anus with the purpose of deceiving Chinese scanners, and treading on the moving walkway in the wrong direction). The cinematography is auspicious yet middle-of-the-road. That a film about the revolutionary verve should lack vim and vigour is no minor shortcoming. This 90-minute drama fails to engage throughout.

The Safe House just premiered in the Official Competition of the 75th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. For a powerful historical drama taking place roughly at the same time, and seen from the perspective a child who later put his memories to paper, watch Walter Salles’s Oscar contender I’m Still Here instead (2024).