11/02/2022 - BERLINALE 2022: Ursula Meier subtly explores a tumultuous world of intense and contradictory emotions in a film which dazzles for its female cast, led by acting revelation Stéphanie Blanchoud

It’s by way of a staggering scene depicting an epic family argument, whose expressive violence is amplified by the total absence of direct sound, replaced here by classical music, that Ursula Meier has made her return to the Berlinale’s competition, offering up The Line [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile] ten years after winning the festival’s Special Jury Prize for Sister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile]. This is only the third fiction feature to come courtesy of the French-Swiss director (discovered in Cannes’ Critics’ Week 2008 by way of Home [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
interview: Thierry Spicher
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile]) who is hereby confirming her knack for homing in on the deep ambivalence of emotional bonds, love and wounds, the weight of the past, remorse, and forgiveness. The film explores a vast range of flexible distances, where the fire of the heart seethes beneath an icy layer of scar tissue, in a paradoxical mix of instinctive emotions, things left unsaid, looks and boundaries, both visible and invisible.

"If you don’t stick to this restraining order, you’ll go straight to prison!" Thirty-year-old Margaret (the highly charismatic Stéphanie Blanchoud) has been warned: pending her appearance in court and due to the risk of re-offending, she is banned from making any contact with her mother for three months or from coming within 100 metres of her home. It’s an exceptional situation brought about by the initial altercation which resulted in Cristina (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) falling hard onto her piano following a forceful slap meted out by her eldest daughter who was literally out of her mind and who was eventually dragged to the door and thrown outside into the snow by the rest of the family.

An utter mess, Margaret finds refuge at the home of fellow musician Julian (Benjamin Biolay) who, despite being a close friend, isn’t altogether pleased to be putting her up ("I won’t ask anything of you, you don’t ask anything of me"). Desperate to win forgiveness, the highly impulsive and scrappy young woman starts circling the family home, night and day, kept at a distance by a blue line drawn 100 metres away from the house, while her two sisters - teenager Marion (Elli Spagnolo) and soon-to-pop Louise (India Hair) - find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. Because their mother (and no-one dares reveal this fact to Margaret) lost 50% of her hearing in the shock of the attack, alongside her job as a piano teacher and the music that filled a long-standing void in her life and which also compensated for her complicated feelings vis-a-vis her three daughters, notably Margaret.

Dissecting the turmoil of this little family island, nestled on a private suburban housing estate in the countryside, flanked by a canal, a road and a railway, all encased within a majestic mountain landscape, Ursula Meier proves her gift for using spaces and subtle symbols to their visual advantage. The brilliant screenplay (penned by the filmmaker alongside Stéphanie Blanchoud and Antoine Jaccoud), the entire female cast and a keen understanding of how to capture human emotions in realistic fashion, from animalesque to a state of elevation, lend The Line a level of substance and truth which is perfectly in line with an "anti-psychological" style, which determines to draw its own limits.

The Line is produced by Switzerland’s Bandita Films alongside French firm Films de Pierre and Belgium’s Films du Fleuve, in co-production with Arte France Cinéma, RTS, RTBF, Voo and Be TV. International sales are entrusted to Memento International.

(Translated from French)