Streaming on MUBI - Janice Tong highly recommends BARRAGE (Laura Schroeder, France 2017) starring the Hupperts mère et fille

This handsome three-hander charts the oft unseen bond of family across three generations of women. Real-life mother and daughter, Isabelle Huppert and Lolita Chammah exert a certain charm to this pairing - you can see that they’re just as strict on themselves as they are natural in their approach to the craft, each woman exuding a sense of something vulnerable, and palpably real. 

Mother and daughter pair  – Isabelle Huppert as Elisabeth (left)
and Lolita Chammah as Catherine (right) on set and in life

 

Huppert is Elisabeth, the grandmaman, or rather, the ‘grand dame’ in this matriarchal family, with her well-played politics and her barely detectable but highly manipulative tendencies. And Chammah plays her wayward daughter, Catherine; who returns after a period of absence: ten years is a long temporal voyage worthy of Homer’s epic poem Ulysses. But ten years experienced in the 21st century is a hasty yawn of missed adventures and is over in a temporal gust that succeeds each decade like the blink of an eye. Upon Catherine’s return to Luxembourg from Switzerland (little is known of her experiences there, except telltale signs suggest perhaps she was at a health resort or at least, somewhere hidden from view), she seeks out her daughter, Alba, wonderfully portrayed by Themis Pauwels, who caps off this fragile triangle. 

The wonderful Themis Pauwels as Alba

 

In the beginning, our gaze is that of Catherine’s: the camera reveals to us a kind of silent watching - the taking in of the world where her daughter is situated. The everyday activities at school, the squeaky running shoes during tennis practice, punctuated by the loud ‘thwack’ when her racquet strikes the ball. We sense that Alba is in a pressurised environment - at ten years old, she’s the perfect age for being moulded; and grandmaman plays at being the master sculptor, hands at the wheel, ever-so-subtly squeezing and shaping her ingenue. To outsiders, the theatre of unhappiness isn’t evident, save for Huppert’s reputation for playing demanding roles; her initial encounter with her estranged daughter was more than courteous and as motherly as Huppert (in any role) can muster. 

 

Although Huppert’s Elisabeth isn’t our main focus in the story, the two daughters on the other hand have clearly been marked by her hand; so her traces are carried throughout the film even in her absence. There are no fireworks, or dramatics (even during a pivotal scene about a third of the way into the film, all is quietly resolved), and any discontent or damage is but a matter of living, of being human.

 

The closed door of the family home has been pried open and we become the unwitting witness of mother and daughter’s unfolding days where Catherine takes off with Alba to the ‘family chalet’, the place of Catherine’s childhood but a place that has been shut off from Alba. Once there, the protracted days see the two get to know each other as well as get on each other’s nerves. Catherine hunkers down memory lane, digging out clothing that belonged to her own teenage years with behaviour to match, she is clearly unused to raising a child. Their dance of distant affection holds our attention nonetheless, and although not much happens - lying on banana lounges, eating cereal for dinner, watching the light glimmer off the lake and the deceptive idleness of passing waterways, the making of an indoor tent; slowly and languidly, the days expand out into unexpected feelings for each other and a kind of Summer friendship draws in the bonds for this mother and daughter pair. The young Pauwels is magnificent here, a wonderful mix of curiosity and fiery defiance, swathed in a quiet bundle of self-willed indifference; her performance is worthy of Huppert and Chammah’s. 

‘Dance’ on the court

 

Schroeder’s direction is graceful and restrained, her ability to tell a story with little dialogue or action whilst keeping the narrative engaging, shows a degree of mastery - not a single moment felt too drawn out nor forced; her eye is perfectly matched with the clever and unobtrusive cinematography of Hélène Louvart. There’s something very cloistering in the film’s 1.375:1 aspect ratio, this framing draws us further into the intimate presence of this small family unit and allows us to really experience what Catherine and Alba are feeling. 

 

The film’s denouement captures the quiet acceptance of one’s fate. Alba’s row boat journey recalled another for me, that of Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen’s memorable film Valley of Shadows(2017) out in the same year and Adam Ekeli’s Aslak, an embodiment of a young boy’s metaphoric subterranean journey across the River Styx. This connection demonstrates just how brilliantly films can speak to one another across cinematic time and within that vast repository of collective memory.

 

Whilst Barrage premiered at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival Forum and received generally positive reviews from critics, I don’t think it had any theatrical screenings here in Australia. And like many foreign independent films, even when they are gems, sadly often missed by the general public. This same comment applies to another film with Chammah in the lead released that same year; Strange Birds by Élise Girard also belongs to that kind of rare not-to-be-missed low-budget film(I reviewed it in my 2020 roundup here) that I hope more people will seek out to watch.