Maybe it’s just me but it seems like any French film that wins a distribution deal in the U.S. has Isabelle Huppert in it. Does she have some kind of special deal with the import/export office? Can’t Sandrine Bonnaire, Miou-Miou, Natalie Baye, or some other French actress get some equal representation?

Don’t get me wrong. Huppert’s talent as an actress is indisputable and she probably deserved the Best Actress Oscar for her go-for-broke performance in THE PIANO PLAYER. It’s also heartening to see any actress past the age of fifty getting steady work and not being relegated to a supporting role as the mother – or grandmother – of the 20-something female lead. But I think overexposure is the issue here (Catherine Deneuve had the same problem for years). And Huppert often seems drawn to variations of the same edgy, extreme character in film after film which can get monotonous if you happened to see her in MA MERE, LES SOEURS FACHEES and GABRIELLE in the same year. Not a hard feat to do since she averages anywhere between one to three movies a year.  

So it was with extreme trepidation that I approached PRIVATE PROPERTY (French title: Nue Propriete), a recent film by Belgium director Joachim Lafosse with – who else? – Isabelle Huppert in the lead. And once again she’s playing a neurotic and difficult character….but there’s something quite different about this one.

The film is an emotionally intense study of a family coming apart at the seams but it develops slowly at first in static medium shots that began to accumulate tension as trouble develops among the three main characters. Huppert plays Pascale, a working mother living with her two college age sons Thierry and Francois (played by real life brothers Jeremie, the star of  “L’Enfant” by the Dardenne brothers, & Yannick Renier), in a spacious farmhouse on a sprawling country estate. Pascale divorced the father ten years earlier and he remarried and still lives nearby but is forbidden to visit the boys at Pascale’s home despite the fact that he was the one who bought the property.

When the movie opens we are thrust into the midst of a developing conflict between Pascale and her sons, particularly Thierry who alternately antagonizes and teases her. A pattern of unhealthy emotional co-dependency is quickly established as we observe how difficult it is for this threesome to break out of their claustrophobic little world. Thierry and Francois appear to be stuck in some form of arrested development. They have no ambition and appear content to let their mother continue feeding and providing for them while they wreck a motorcycle, shoot rats by the pond, play ping pong, watch TV or amuse themselves with computer games while waiting for the next meal. Their lazy, spoiled nature and sense of entitlement is obviously the result of bad parenting…but who is to blame?

PRIVATE PROPERTY enters the realm of Greek tragedy once it reveals Pascale’s plan to sell the country estate and use the money to set up a B&B with her lover, a local restaurant chef. The boys would have to figure out their own living situation. Of course, breaking the news to them is another matter. As the film plays out, Pascale moves out of the house and in with a friend, leaving Thierry and Francois to their own devices. Hurt and confused by Pascale’s abandonment, the two brothers’ symbiotic relationship breaks down into petty bickering and eventually physical violence. The movie ends on a devastating personal note as the family, including the father, are reunited briefly under tragic circumstances. And then, in an astonishing closing shot, the camera flees the scene, backing out of the house, down the driveway, out into the country lane past the estate and further down the road as the farmhouse disappears into the distance while the music score – a frenzied string orchestra – functions as a wailing Greek chorus of misery.

Now I’m having to access Isabelle Huppert all over again. It’s a remarkable performance, one of restraint and great sadness. She’s clearly a less than perfect mother and partly to blame for the way her sons turned out. She’s trapped in a web of her own design. But unlike the cool and aloof characters she often plays, Huppert is completely vulnerable here, displaying human frailty and remorse. It’s also quite clear by the end, that the title PRIVATE PROPERTY is not just referring to Pascale’s country estate but to Pascale herself. The battle for possession is over her.