Starring: Fabrice Luchini, Ernst Umhauer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Bastien Ughetto, Emmanuelle Seigner, Denis Menochet, and Yolande Moreau
Distributor: Transmission Films
Runtime: 101 mins. Reviewed in Jul 2013
| 
| 
Based loosely on the play, “The Boy in the Back Row” by Spanish author, Juan Mayorga, this subtitled, French comedy-thriller has gained awards on the international film festival circuit in the categories of both “best picture” and “best screenplay”.
The film is set in an unidentified French town where a stern-looking teacher, Germain (Fabrice Luchini), who considers himself a failed novelist, teaches French language and literature to a class of boys in a secondary high school.
Germain is contemptuous of his fellow teachers, not at all used to being stimulated by his students, and frustrates his wife, who owns a fashionable art gallery in town. Germain discovers a precocious pupil, Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer), who sits at the back of his class and lives with his disabled father (Yolande Moreau). Claude submits to him an essay on “What I did last week”. The essay tells the story of a middle-class family of a fellow pupil, Rapha (Bastien Ughetto), “an ordinary affable friend”, who lives in his house with his attractive mother, Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner), and his business-driven father (Denis Menochet), who is preoccupied with China. Rapha’s family seems normal to Claude, and it is the kind of family that Claude wants for himself.
At home in his apartment, Germain reads Claude’s essay to his wife, Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas), and both Germain and Jeanne become captivated by what Claude is revealing. Germain, supported by Jeanne, encourages the 16-year old Claude to chronicle the family’s lives, and in his imagination Germain insinuates himself into Rapha’s house as an observer. He becomes obsessed with what Claude is writing and uses his obsession to motivate Claude to shape his literary talent, criticizing him all the way but egging him on to write more. So preoccupied is Germain with tutoring Claude that Jeanne thinks Claude and Germain are attracted sexually to each other.
This is a film about the development of stories within a story, and its shows the influence of multiple sources, both literary and cinematic, and the film becomes a dark satire, with a bite to it that comments critically on social class, gender, and intellectual mores. It is also a movie about the personalisation of education in which the relationship between teacher and pupil subverts and dominates the learning experience.
Germain is captured by his thoughts about what might be going on inside Rapha’s house, and wants to discover more. He tutors Claude, but Claude also is a teacher to him. Germain goes so far as to change his own life outside Claude’s story to make sure that Claude’s story continues. Rapha’s house becomes the dominant metaphor for the movie, and the movie’s title, “In the House”, assumes multiple levels of meaning. In the final analysis, Germain becomes trapped by his own imagination, is stood down as a teacher, and becomes incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy. The film forces us to ask whether Claude is intentionally transforming his own fantasies, or those he perceives in his teacher. And we are never sure who is the real voyeur in the movie – Claude, Germain, or whoever is watching what unfolds on the screen.
This is a film that probes the intellect, but also the senses in its blatant eroticism. Claude describes Esther, the mother in “a perfect family house”, for example, as a person with “the singular scent of a middle-class woman”. Its complicated plot gathers complexity as the movie progresses, and we are not entirely certain about who is attracted to whom. The film ends up being a thriller in which reality maintains its elusiveness. Ozon’s observations about class, gender, and education are razor sharp, and they are acted out impeccably by a wonderful cast.
This extraordinarily inventive and stylish thriller has a definite psycho-sexual edge. It manipulates the truth by exploring both the actors’ and our own imagination, and it makes for absorbing viewing in a cleverly teasing way.
12 Random Films…
