Open Air | La Venue De L’Avenir
A historical drama by Cédric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole, Paris) that takes us on a journey from present-day Normandy back to Paris during the early days of Impressionism and photography. Highly recommended for Francophiles.
Four estranged cousins unexpectedly inherit a house in Normandy. The house is almost like a time machine; untouched since the 1940s. The cousins uncover the life story of one of their ancestors, Adèle Meunier, who lived in the house in 1895.
Director Cédric Klapisch – known for popular arthouse hits such as L’Auberge Espagnole, Paris, and Chacun Cherche Son Chat – alternates the story of the four cousins with that of Adèle, who moves from Normandy to Paris at the end of the nineteenth century in search of her missing mother. She befriends a young photographer and a young painter, taking up residence in their Montmartre apartment.
The Paris of the Belle Époque is beautifully brought to life in La Venue De L’Avenir. Today we often view that era through a romantic, nostalgic lens, but Klapisch convincingly shows that for Parisians at the time, it was a turbulent and unsettling period of radical change. (mv)