Thursday, December 1, 2011

Movie of the Month - A Christmas Tale

The holiday season is supposed to be a cheerful and joyous time, however, as you grow older it seems to stretch further from what it was like when you were a child. It is only a natural and honest progression. In 2008, the French film, A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël) told this in all the correct ways. The film is about a tale of a dysfunctional and distant family reuniting for Christmas and the infamous family battles that strain the bonds between them. The soap opera of who is not speaking to who, who has a dark skeleton in their closet, who's child is a failure, who could and should be doing more with life, who is jealous of who, A Christmas Tale takes raw, honest family stories and emotion and sets them to the backdrop of the holiday season. As the family reunites, they only find out their matters are nothing and should be resolved as the matriarch of the family is dying of Leukemia. The film is one that looks at the dark side to the Christmas season.