Summer Hours

I enjoyed this far more than I expected, not being a huge fan of Olivier Assayas. It's a simple story centred around a handful of lengthy family set-pieces but raising questions about culture, heritage, preservation of memories, and what it means to be French. When their mother dies, three siblings have to decide what to do with her rambling country house and the works of art that it contains, including the sketchbooks of their artist great-uncle. The eldest wants to preserve it all, in order to pass it on to the next generation. However, his brother and sister no longer live in France and their lives are not centred around their childhood home anymore. Their futures lie in China and America. As for the works of art, they get dispersed to museums or sold at auction. Rather than being the domain of one select group of people, they now become visible to many more. A nice touch is when the eldest son allows his mother's housekeeper to select a keepsake. She doesn't want to take advantage so chooses a vase which she alone has ever liked. He agrees despite just learning that it is in fact very valuable. It's a comforting thought that while one of the vases will be behind glass in a museum, the other will still be containing flowers somewhere.