Andres Salama
A directing effort by French actress Julie Delpy. Set in the summer of 1979, the slender plot deals basically with her childhood memories, as the ten year old daughter of progressive parents going to Brittany for a family reunion.One reason I was intrigued to see this movie is that I'm just a year older than Delpy and I remember the worldwide fears about the impending fall of the Skylab space station, from which the movie takes its title (despite the fears, it ended up crashing in an uninhabited part of the Australian desert). Delpy's parents as shown here (she plays her own mother), are, perhaps unintentionally, pretty obnoxious, post 1968 hippies belonging to the self righteous left and always ready to parade their moral superiority. They see themselves as super tolerant and yet they are willing to be totally judgmental toward those who do not share their beliefs. When the film has them argue politics with their conservative relatives (who are of course, portrayed as fat, ugly and vulgar), the couple is naturally given the best lines.An amusing and risqué scene has Albertine, the young daughter (the alter ego of Delpy) going with her father to a nudist beach, and feeling very uncomfortable there, while her parent is totally blasé about the situation. Also with Bernadette Lafont, Emmanuelle Riva and Karin Viard, among others.
writers_reign
... to see that Julie Delpy has done it again, writing and directing another bauble to add to her Two Weeks In Paris etc. What she shows here is just how sure-footed she is handling a large ensemble cast which includes half a dozen children. Okay, not a lot happens; Karin Viard takes a train journey with her husband and child, argues with a couple of passengers who refuse to change places so that she can sit with her family, she sits by the window and something about the landscape transposes her to 1979 and a couple of days of her childhood in St. Malo. She had gone with her parents to celebrate the birthday of her grandmother and it was, in fact, a large family gathering with the requisite amount of laughter and tears. The fact that it was based on Delpy's own memories of a similar gathering is really neither here nor there although it probably gives it a greater authenticity. A wonderful ensemble cast - including fellow writer/director Noemie Lvovsky - flesh out the characters to a fare-thee-well and I for one will be adding the DVD to my collection the instant it becomes available.
guy-bellinger
One of Julie Delpy's main qualities as a movie director is her ability not to repeat what she has done before and to move from one genre to another effortlessly. "Le Skylab" has not much to do with "2 Days in Paris", even less so with "La comtesse". In this particular film, she explores two areas, comedy (for the first time since "Looking for Jimmy") and autobiography (for the first time ever)."Le Skylab" indeed stems from the writer-director-actress's childhood memories, more precisely from a weekend nine-year-old Julie spent at her granny's house in Brittany. The object of the family reunion was to celebrate the said grandmother's 67th birthday but Julie would probably not have made a film of this "event", had it not been marred by a curious and unsettling menace : the supposed fall of the first American space station on Brittany. This impending catastrophe allows Julie Delpy to bring more depth to her story than if she had opted for a mere emotional evocation of her green years. Back in the Summer of 1979, Little Julie (called Albertine in the movie) can thus be seen both playing with cousins like the little girl she is and more adultly wondering about death and physical disappearance.To explore such a theme (a child considering death for the first time), the director could have chosen a dramatic angle, in Bergman's style ("Fanny and Alexander"), an emotional approach ("Diabolo Menthe) or a horrific tone ("Night of the Hunter"). But Julie Delpy is a too lively a person not to choose comedy. With a touch of tragedy of course, but laughter will dominate.Good choice, but to tell the truth, "Le Skylab" delivers less than it promises. On the whole, sincere as it is, the film proves uneven. There ARE good points, the least debatable of which being its brilliant cast, starting with Delpy herself, full of beans and tart-tongued as usual, playing Albertine's activist mother. The others are all good, with a special mention to Eric Elmosnino, her leftist but much less radical husband ; Bernadette Lafont, in fine form as acerbic Granny Amandine ; Valérie Bonneton, both funny and moving in the role of Aunt Micheline ; and Albert Delpy (Julie's real-life father) embodying an eccentric uncle. As for Lou Alvarez, the young actress who portrays Julie Delpy as a little girl, she is just perfect: neither too cute nor too ugly, just an ordinary brat.In addition to this excellent ensemble cast, a few scenes ARE funny, notably the rows between Albertine's parents, with caustic dialogues penned by Delpy herself, and delivered to perfection by Elmosnino and herself.But, despite its welcome serious side, the plot remains slender. Which would have been of little consequence if the author had been able to captivate or to amuse us throughout. After all, a slice of life can very well do without a strong plot and move or entertain an audience though. But, unfortunately, Delpy's work only intermittently reaches its target, causing us to yawn between two good scenes. One of the reasons is that the pace is too slack. There are also too many group scenes in which everybody speaks at the same time about topics that are uninteresting to us viewers. And if the characters start singing a song, they sing it out until the end. Really, Julie Delpy should be more careful when it comes to editing.Well, do not skip "Le Skylab" though. As, for all its shortcomings, this coming of age comedy is quite watchable and reasonably entertaining on the whole.
