gregking4 Review of Au nom de la terre

Au nom de la terre (2019)

A grim and often bleak look at the hardships faced by farmers

[5/10 · 7 December 2020]

This is the first feature fiction film for Edouard Bergeon, a former photojournalist and documentarian, and it has been largely inspired by the life of his own father, a farmer who passed away in 1996, and to whom In The Name Of The Land is fittingly dedicated. This is a grim and often bleak look at the hardships faced by farmers and depicts the harsh realities of life on the land. A post-script at the end tells us that, in France, a farmer commits suicide every second day on average. A sobering statistic. And the experiences of a farming family facing hardship, financial problems, natural disasters, family conflicts, and stress and depression will resonate strongly with Australian audiences. French actor Guilluame Canet (Tell No One, etc) plays Pierre Jarjeau, the prodigal son who returns home after several years working on a ranch in Wyoming and takes over the family farm. He plans to revolutionise the farm using modern technology and methodology, which leads to some clashes with his more traditional father Jacques (Rufus, a regular in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet). The film spans some twenty years. We observe the family dynamics and see the impact that Pierre's descent into depression has on his supportive and long-suffering wife Claire (Belgian actress Veerle Baetens, from The Broken Circle Breakdown, etc) and his oldest son Thomas (Anthony Bajon). Bergeon's background in documentary filmmaking lends a realism to the farming scenes in particular. Visually the film is quite striking thanks to the widescreen lensing of cinematographer Eric Dumont; but he also works in closeup at times which lends a claustrophobic feel to those scenes in which Pierre suffers from depression and paranoia. The film and its drama hinges around Canet's raw performance as he runs the gamut from early enthusiasm and drive through to disappointment, anger, confusion and bitterness.