Progressive Film Hour - La Petite Chambre - 09/30/14

Tuesday September 30, 3pm EDT : Mitchell will discuss the film, La Petite Chambre, with its filmmakers 

Stephanie Chuat and Veronique Reymond.  Both trained as actresses, Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond have been active in theater since the age of fifteen in both Switzerland and France.

Besides working with stage and movie directors, they created the Switch Company, writing and performing their own theatre shows. In April 2010, they launched the theatre adaptation of Nancy Huston’s novel FAULT LINES (Lignes de Faille). They took their first steps into film by including video installations into their stage work and have since also co-wrote and directed five short-films and two documentaries together.

The film is about an elderly Edmond, who one day, a bad fall forces him to accept Rose’s help. Eventually, the two grow closer. The young woman finds relief in confiding painful memories to the older man; things she cannot even bring herself to tell her husband. Meanwhile, Edmond, too, opens up, sharing recollections of his beloved wife.

The film highlights a number of very human emotions, circumstances and conditions, several of which are generally taboo for open conversation in families and society, such as the experience of giving birth to a still-born child, the dilemmas surrounding aging and the pros and cons of committing one’s parents to a nursing facility, and issues around identity, conformity and loss.  A very human, emotional film, it has much to open us to in our own experience and attitudes/perspectives toward these matters very close to home.

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