A Sunday in the Country (1984)

Did you know that is was Canius Fanius who forbade the rearing of chickens on the streets of ancient Rome? That’s what you learn from a weekly lunch with your ageing father/grandfather and what “Msr. Ladmiral” (Louis Decreux) imparts to his visiting son “Gonzague” (Michel Aumont) who is visiting for Sunday lunch with his wife “Mercédès” (Monique Chaumette) and three children. Although they all get on fine, I think for the family travelling from Paris this has become a bit of a chore - but he is a jolly old painter who adores his three grandchildren. On this particular weekend, an unexpected whirlwind arrives in the form of daughter “Irène” (Sabine Azéma) - complete with her motor car. Unlike her sibling, she is unmarried and visits far less often but it’s quite clear that she is the apple of the old man’s eye and he is delighted to have them all around him for a day. As that day pans out we begin to learn a little of their family dynamic and, through a few almost sepia-style recollections, we look back upon his own childhood at their idyllic rural mansion. There is something bucolically eccentric about the style of this film, indeed I kept seeing William Hartnell in Decreux’s shoes as the cane-wielding, dapperly attired old gent. Thereafter, we enjoy a characterful critique of how different his two children have turned out to be; how their priorities are pretty much polar opposites with one choosing a stable and responsible lifestyle and the other a much more relaxed, perhaps even Bohemian one. What is writ large is that despite these differences, their father accommodates them in a tolerant and loving manner. Perhaps that is because his love for them is all that is left of his love for their mother, and that perhaps his own mortality is beginning to make it’s presence felt? Unlike one of Ingmar Bergman’s torrid family dramas, this one has much more joy to it; shades of mischief and there’s even a slight degree of romance from an “Irène” that she declines to explain! It looks great, the production design and the brilliance of the outdoor light all bring a classic stylishness to this drama about an old man and his life, his family and even a little of his stoic loneliness.