Arnaud Desplechin, in his directorial debut won best director in the French film awards. A Christmas Tale is on over 20 critics top 10, with several respectable number 1s. I was amazed by the style and elegance of this film. It was 2 and a half hours, giving it time to breath and be. Its constructed by hundreds of tiny moments between family members. Many of which there is no dialoge.
The story is about a strained family. Dysfunctional is what we'd call it, but it's not as simple as that. They come together for the first time in a while for Christmas.
The music was very interesting, using odd instruments from many different places; some sort of Irish bag piping, an auto harp, a harpsichord, Indian percussion and other things I can't think of or noticed.
The use of light was unconventional. The camera was sometimes over exposed, maybe to point out something. The focus was used in an interesting way. The use of soft focus and sharp focus meant something. There was a circle framing in some scenes, maybe seems that pertained to death. There was probably many many things I didn't even catch because I was too busy concentrating on what was going on in the story and reading the French subtitles.
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