Product Description

Arnaud Desplechin comes home for Christmas in his outrageous, daring and emotionally bountiful new movie. Catherine Deneuve is Junon, the family matriarch, who greets the news of her life-threatening illness with calm equanimity. Jean-Paul Roussillon is her wise, tender husband. Desplechin regular Mathieu Amalric is the black sheep, banished from the family by his imperious sister (Anne Consigny, both actors last seen in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who arrives with his bemused Jewish girlfriend in tow (Emmanuelle Devos). Melvil Poupaud is the most sensitive of the children, happily married to the divine Chiara Mastroianni.

It's hard to miss with such a cast, but A Christmas Tale is much, much more than a good ensemble comedy. In this midwinter night's dream, unrequited love collides with bitter resentment, nostalgic longing crosses paths with abject fear, and pure hatred gives way to vivacious affection.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3745 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-06-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 150 minutes

Synopsis
For some, Christmas means the joy of spending time with loved ones. But not for the Vuillard family in Arnaud Desplechin's blackly comic A CHRISTMAS TALE. Instead of egg nog, bile and venom flow at the family get-together when estranged son Henri (Mathieu Amalric, QUANTUM OF SOLACE) returns. His mother, Junon (Catherine Deneuve), has cancer, and Henri may be the bone marrow donor match that could save her life. Oldest daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) is equally unhappy to see her brother; he has been an emotional and financial drain on the family, and she had him legally banished from the family six years ago. But with his return, old wounds are freshly opened as the entire brood gathers together for what could be their last holiday.

Director Desplechin's previous film KING AND QUEENS established his ability to seamlessly meld drama and comedy, and A CHRISTMAS TALE continues that tradition. This French film easily moves the audience between laughter, gasps, and tears. The behavior of the Vuillard famille is atrocious at times, and it goes beyond just the awful--and sometimes awfully funny--things they say to one another. But Desplechin has no trouble acheiving the right tone in these moments, and his postmodern style of filmmaking (with elements such as the actors addressing the camera) is perfectly suited to the material. His ensemble cast includes Jean-Paul Roussillon, Denueve's real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, and Melvil Poupaud, and though each does a fantastic job, it's the bitter and hilarious interplay between Amalric's Henri and Deneuve's Junon that steal the film.

Customer Reviews

a film not just for christmas
I have never written review for a film before, but this film is worth it, easily for me one of my favourite films of last year.

The first thing to say is this not really a Christmas film as the story happens to unfold at that time of year, the best time for family drama, as when else do you get an entire family under one roof, for more than an afternoon. It is a very worthy addition to the Desplechin already impressive cannon, it is a very funny dark ensemble film with absolutely pitch perfect performances from everyone, especially for me anyway Deneuve, Rossillon and as usual Amalric.

If you want to watch a brillant almost novel like film where you believe and care about the characters than is the film for you...otherwise stick to Four Christmas's.

And this introduced me to a brillant Chrismas song I had not heard before, Otis Reading's Merry Christmas Baby, perfect.

A Christmas Tale
"A Christmas Tale" is similar to Desplechins earlier film, "Kings and Queen". Both films are about two and a half hours, displays a large gallery a of characters and has the same actors: Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric and more. Amalric even plays a similar immature and irresponsible person. It is an entertaining story about human relations, beautifully shot and with characters interesting enough. 2,5 hours is a long time for a movie, but with so many characters to follow it feels a little too crowded. Maybe the story would suit a novel better.

The transfer/picture of the DVD is very good and sharp. There is also a whole extra disc with a documentary about the directors family /haven't watched it though).

One of the best films of 2008
Others have given the story and tenor of this film. I'll just say that Conte de Noël is one of the best two contemporary films that I saw in 2008. It was shown at the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival and at a mini-Festival put on by Alliance Francaise in 2009. Conte de Noël never received a commercial release in Melbourne, perhaps nowhere in Australia.

Since seeing it I have tracked down copies of all Arnaud Desplechin's films and watched each at least three times, despite most being out of print (the early ones are pre-2000 DVD issues, with pretty dire transfers). One major film has never been been released on silver disc at all AFAIK, but fortuitously the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI, a government institution) put on a retrospective season in late 2008 which included it, and subsequently it was shown twice on our government multicultural TV channel SBS. Needless to say, I have multiple backup copies on two PVRs.

IMO Desplechin is a leading contemporary director who is yet to get his proper due, and all his early films deserve re-releases with decent mastering.

And there is a story here for someone to write. Desplechin, right from his first feature film La Sentinelle (1992) through to Conte de Noël, has consistently used an ensemble group of actors, mostly young and clearly his generation, who must share some common, most likely film educational, background. It is fascinating to watch this group develop over seventeen years. Not only has Desplechin emerged from this group, but also at least two independently famous major acting talents: Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric.

Contrary to the information supplied above by Amazon, this Drakes Avenue Pictures New Wave 004 release is a two disc set, with the lesser known documentary L'Aimée (2007) featured on the second disc. I'm disappointed that Conte de Nöel did not come out on Blu-ray as in France (an edition with no English subtitles), but that is partly made up for here by the valuable presence of L'Aimée.