A Burning Hot Summer

A beautiful estate on the outskirts of the 'eternal city'. Four attractive people, three from France, one Italian. The problems of the outside world are ignored - they keep to themselves and focus on their own problems: The marriage between the eccentric French painter Frédéric (Louis Garrel) and the beautiful Italian actress Angèle (Monica Bellucci) is already in crisis when they receive a visit from Paul (Jérôme Robart), also an actor, and Elisabeth (Céline Sallette) from France. When Angèle and Paul start an affair, Frédéric's jealousy and desire for control make the summer not just hot, but downright dicey. Director Philippe Garrel (father of Frédéric actor Louis Garrel) illuminates this web of relationships in short, sketchy episodes, with the story proving to be a meandering reflection on love, relationships, art and the demands of "a bourgeois life". With great understanding for the weaknesses of his characters, Garrel depicts a frozen world in which all the major battles have already been fought. His characters are unable to tackle the fundamental social problems, such as the exploitation of migrants or rising unemployment. And in this standstill, in the powerlessness and the attempts to break out in private, Garrell's film hits the nerve of our time. "In a final, painfully honest scene, a grandfather who is already dead speaks out and utters the words that lie like a prophetic commentary over the entire course of the film. As a former Resistance fighter, he knows that it used to be easier to choose sides. It was easier to do the right thing. "Hitler or Stalin. There was no in-between," he says. Today there is no such distinction, the fronts in our world have long since ceased to be so orderly and clear. There is no one present. The only war we are still engaged in today is the war of emotions, the clashes and frictions of a relationship. But once you have seen "A Burning Summer" to the end, you get the uneasy feeling that even this battle is not worth the potential bloodshed. How can we avoid this resigned gesture? How can we save ourselves? Perhaps the answer lies in this incredibly hypnotic sequence in which Monica Bellucci and Jérôme Robart dance together at a party to the sounds of 60s pop band The Kinks. For a brief moment in the film, there is a happiness that seems to legitimize the subsequent hardship of the relationship crisis. It is the pure happiness of falling in love. It is the addiction to that one moment that is still worth fighting for - even if you pay for it with your life." (Patrick Wellinski, at www.kino-zeit.de)