It takes you on a nostalgic journey back and forth through infancy, the teenage years, parenthood and old age, but it never lets you lose sight of the road directly ahead.
The first of the days is 24 August 1988, the day eldest son Albert (Pio Marmaï) has the family dog put down and leaves home. The second day, 3 December 1993, follows youngest daughter Fleur (Déborah François) as she turns sixteen, loses her virginity and has her heart broken.
On 22 June 1996, aspiring musician and second son Raphaël (Marc-André Grondin) attends his brother’s wedding and discovers his grandfather dead. Their mother, Marie-Jeanne (Zabou Breitman), contemplates plastic surgery and an affair on 25 September 1998.
In the final chapter of this saga, 26 May 2000, the head of the family, Robert (Jacques Gamblin), reflects on his life and seizes the chance to make some changes.
The Duvals are a specific group of people with a unique set of experiences and yet the issues they face will resonate with many. Growing up is a mixed blessing and an unavoidable one. Life moves us on whether we want it to or not, and this inevitably affects our familial relationships.
In the western world, blood ties slacken considerably when a child turns eighteen. No longer dependent on, or accountable to, each other, it takes deliberate effort to keep in contact and much grace to accept how people have changed.
Albert characterises families as ‘machines that eradicate feelings,’ but his own feelings testify against this; even into adulthood, his father angers him, his brother frustrates him and his sister makes him fiercely protective. Perhaps the reverse is the real problem: however much time passes, we still feel passionately about our relations.
Family members know exactly how to please and encourage us, but also how to irritate and discourage us. So, to avoid dredging up unresolved emotions, we keep those who provoke them at arms length. Of course we are ready to do our duty when called upon, but otherwise these connections go unattended.
It is no wonder that Marie-Jeanne feels she no longer knows her children and wants to wind the clock back to their infancy. Sadly family life is often only appreciated in retrospect, an album of happy memories. How do families manage to move forward together? As the Duvals grow up, their family portrait grows faint.
However, in each chapter a friendship is retouched or painted in for the first time. On the third day, this is a bittersweet occurrence. Robert, whilst filling in the death certificate of his apparently hard-hearted father, Pierre (Roger Dumas), finds a photograph of himself in his father’s wallet. Somehow our relationships need to develop as our family develops.
The passage of time doesn’t just affect parent-child relationships; it impacts marriages as well. Marie-Jeanne takes a series of photos showing the decomposition of a piece of fruit, then of a flower and finally she takes one of herself. She goes to Albert (now a plastic surgeon) for help and confides, ‘I wish things were different.
Like before when your father was passionate and only I counted for you.’ He must deliver the hard truth: ‘People come here thinking I’ve invented a time machine. But nothing can ever be like before.’ Marie-Jeanne’s fear of the future hinders her relationship with Robert.
Whilst his grandfather is alive, Raphaël tells him that his apartment is like a time machine because all its contents remind him of his late wife. Time has robbed him of her, but unlike his daughter-in-law Pierre refuses to fear it, insisting, ‘You need to look time in the face.’
He takes pleasure in remembering the past through anecdotes and vintage wines, but he doesn’t live in it. Jesus also encouraged people to live in the present, but he provided a promise to stop his followers from worrying about the future:
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (Matt 6:34, The Message)
How can we make the most of each day? Fleur encourages her father to, ‘Enjoy life now.’ Raphaël reminds him, ‘You only live once,’ and both Raphaël and Robert tell people to, ‘Let [Fleur] live her life.’ What do they mean and what does their philosophy look like in practice? Fleur seizes the day by having sex with men she doesn’t respect and Raphaël’s recommendation to his father refers only to his wine selection. It’s no surprise that the film’s name isn’t derived from shallow choices like these; it comes from a diary entry Fleur writes to put an end to her rash decisions. Albert has a similar moment when he finally reconnects with his father:
Albert: ‘Dad, I feel like I screwed up for years.’
Robert: ‘So why don’t you stop screwing up?’
If we look closely, life is teeming with opportunities to stop screwing up, but we have to catch them before they pass us by. To make the most of life, we have to actively run with change – deciding to accept new circumstances, make resolutions happen and relish the present as much as the past.
The opposite of this is procrastination, which Marie-Jeanne defines as, ‘A pathological need to put things off until the next day.’ She warns Raphaël, ‘You have to stop [procrastinating]. One day, you’ll have so much to do, the rest of your life won’t be enough.’
Robert illustrates the importance of this warning by neglecting to make changes until it is too late. He is given the means to quit smoking on the first day and the chance to reconcile with Albert on the third, but he doesn’t deal with either until the fifth. In a flippant remark, Pierre pinpoints the motivator that eventually kick-starts his son’s life – ‘I know what you need to stop [smoking]: cancer.’ Life is short and, as the film reveals, death is a ditch that cannot be hurdled.
On the first day, which is entitled ‘It’s A Dog’s Life’, Robert says (with reference to their dying dog), ‘You live life until it’s over.’ The Bible claims that God has a greater plan in mind for us, one that stretches beyond the grave and gives our every step purpose.
During the film’s final scene, the song ‘Perfect Day’ tells of one beautiful day spent with loved ones before returning home. God offers us an eternity spent in a perfect, loving relationship with him and others in a place where we truly belong. Paul, a follower of Jesus, wrote about the effect this future had on his present:
I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (Phil 3:13-14, NLT)
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. How will you spend it? Where is it heading?
This article was first published on Damaris' Culturewatch website (www.culturewatch.org) - used with permission.
© Copyright Holly Price (2010)
