Dans La Maison is (according to Rotten Tomatoes) a French mystery/suspense, I personally think it should be given more credit then being coined merely by two genres. To me this film incorporates everything that’s great about hybrid genre films; including conventions of romance, horror & comedy, all combined in a large cauldron of darkly tense (but thoroughly enjoyable) cinematic gloop. Did I mention the director is the one and only master of chilling social thrillers Francois Ozon?
The plot is complicated with a series of stories within stories, the main one being Claude’s complicated obsession and inevitable infiltrate his classmate, Rapha’s, family; the Artoles are the epitome of suburban middle class but they also represent the normality to which damaged Claude isn’t accustomed to. The predominant theme of the film is obsession, which is delivered to the audience in two main manifestations; failed novelist turned reluctant teacher, Germain’s obsession with Claude’s writing and Claude’s obsession with the matriarch of the Artoles, Esther. The minor characters are also individually plagued with this compulsion: Esther herself lives through glossy magazines, her husband Rapha (yes he is one of those people who names his child after himself) is controlled by work and his thirst for success and Germain’s reasonably level headed wife Jeanne’s insecurity is shown through her tepid attempts at running an avant-garde art gallery.
Which leads me onto how effortlessly fashionable the film itself is, all of the locations used seem to emit a certain sophistication and immaculateness such as Germain’s cool flat and the modern but homely Artole’s – which are both locations where Claude can enact his debauched thoughts. While these sleek aesthetics makes for a visually indulgent film, it also creates a kind of disharmony; lewd things happening in such sanitized settings.
The striking factor about the whole film for me is how it catalogs the true, haunted mind of a literary genius, this is embodied by the emotionally unstable Claude who himself evokes a slightly Freudian feel with his uncontrollable lust for motherly Esther and how he can seduce a staunch man such as Germain by the mere words he writes down.
Overall I would say this film symbolizes something much deeper than a mere tense atmosphere, it creates a wholly uncomfortable but equally enticing film which explores the hidden desires which on unearthed in the creative process.
Words by Lauren Parsons