Berlinale 2024: A Family (Encounters) | Review
For her directorial debut, French writer Christine Angot invites us to follow her on a restless quest around the horror that pursues her: incest. She manages never to lapse into voyeurism, and above all, to offer us a magnificent piece of cinema.
Autofiction in documentary format. Christine Angot achieves this daring balance brilliantly. In A Family, premiering this year at the Berlinale in the “Encounters” section, the French writer invites us to follow her on a quest: her own. She, who was raped by her father over several years, wants to understand why some of those around her said nothing, didn’t want to, or didn’t know how to react to this tragedy. So the author invites us to join her in questioning those who could explain themselves a little (at least): her mother-in-law, her mother, her ex-husband, but also (and above all?) her daughter.
It has to be said, with its subject matter of incest, A Family is not an easy film to watch. The words, the gestures, the emotions on the faces, everything reminds us of the horror and the unspoken. But Christine Angot knows how to make sense of it all: she sets off like a journalist to interview those closest to her, asking the right questions and bouncing back when needed, even in moments of rare violence, such as an extremely tense face-to-face with her mother-in-law. The camera shoots with empathy, at the right distance, without becoming voyeuristic, when it would have been easier to be voyeuristic.
A blend of personal archives – numerous videos of past moments between the writer and her (very young) daughter punctuate the film – and present-day encounters, A Family is a hybrid documentary of exceptional intensity. Where Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania revolutionized the genre last year with Four Daughters – using actors to facilitate the spoken word – Christine Angot’s approach here is personal, yet universal. It’s a story about the flaws in all of us, about our inability – sometimes – to react in the hardest of times, about the fragility that makes us all so human.
