Back in 1975, Nicolas Philibert was a young assistant to film maker René Allio. They made the film "Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon frère" (I, Pierre Rivière, having cut the throat of my mother, my sister and my brother). All the main parts were played by peasants of the region. Thirty years later, Nicolas Philibert went back to Normandy to find those peasants and see what they had become. He told their story in his new movie: "Return to Normandy".All the peasants
remember exactly the film of 1975 as a wonderful experience. Lucidly, all of them knew that it would be a one-time experience and no one dreamed about becoming a famous actor."Return to Normandy" jumps back and forth in time, between present time, the shooting of the movie in 1975 and the triple murder committed in 1835 by a young peasant of the region, Pierre Rivière. Throughout the movie, the peasant playing the main role, which of Pierre Rivière, remains a mystery until the end: both the spectator and Nicolas Philibert himself are surprised to find out what he became after taking part in the movie...This movie is not only about the shooting of a small-budget film (with peasants-actors) in 1975. It is also a story about life and death, growing old, remembering the past. It is also about madness, with the example of Pierre Rivière, who killed three members of his family in 1835, and the example of a couple of peasants whose daughter suddenly became crazy a few years after the shooting of the movie in 1975. Nicolas Philibert also wanted to show life in the countryside as it is, without embellishing it, but also without cliché or prejudice: by letting peasants play their own part, Philibert wanted to give them an opportunity to speak about themselves, about their daily life, their dreams and their struggles.
A straightforward docu with a slightly mystical heart, Back to Normandy plays like a meticulous personal project on which we are permitted to eavesdrop.
It's a bit too convenient to credit Philibert's film with Proustian significance, but this particular remembrance has been constructed with similar profundity.
The doc becomes an ode to the film the cast collectively made and iterates what power and range a camera can have in front as well as behind the scenes.
With Back to Normandy, a nostalgic travelogue with philosophical aspirations, director Nicolas Philibert not only returns to the scene of a crime but the scene of a movie shoot.
Granted, Philibert's free-roaming approach is as languid as a weekend ramble. But his warm, tender, patient film finds much to move and chew on in the mulch and mire of rustic matters.
A self-effacing figure, Philibert never imposes himself on the film, preferring to stress the communal experience of its creation and the very human stories that have emerged from his return journey.
I can't believe this is from the same man that gave us Etre et Avoir! Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon frère looks like a great film but hardly anyone has seen it as it was never widely distributed. This isn't even a making of! This may be one of the most pointless and boring 'Documentaries'
of all time. It isn't intriguing or interesting like the critics say, only the film links the incredibly normal people together and seeing as no one has seen it, who cares? Only one man is vaguely interested and he is Nicolas Philibert who obviously made it for himself but thought he'd try and get some money for it. Oh, and showing the slaughter of Pigs completely unnecessarily was stupid and pointless and I didn't like it. When killing a pig is the best you can do for filler, you should reassess the situation me thinks! Etre et Avoir was a fluke, avoid unless you want to be bored out of your mind!!
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