With HereditaryWith «Hereditary», in international competition at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF), young New York director Ari Aster succeeds in his challenge: to make us lose our heads and freeze our blood.
It's an ordinary-looking family in which many of us will recognize ourselves: Annie (Toni Collette), an aloof but loving mother; Steve (Gabriel Byrne), a father with a gentle face and a calm, comforting presence; two children, the elder Peter (Alex Wolff), still in his teens, and the younger Charlie (Milly Shapiro), whose distinctive face tells us that she didn't have the most peaceful start in life.
On the death of the grandmother who shared their daily lives, each member of the family mourns in his or her own way. While the father and son's mourning is discreet, even detached, that of Annie and her daughter Charlie is more contrasting. The little girl is overwhelmed, while her stoic mother feels no sadness. But is it the shock of her mother's death that plunges Annie into this apparent ataraxia? No, because she didn't love her mother. Annie always knew (and regretted) that her mother was strange, worrying. In fact, when Charlie was born, the crazy old woman even wanted to breast-feed him. But for Annie, the most detestable thing was her mother's passion for the esoteric.
From drama to horror
Hereditary is two films in one. The first part is a horrible, awful drama. Charlie is dead, and Annie's screams upon learning of her daughter's death are almost unbearable. Here, Ari Aster films the unspeakable, the unimaginable in a brutal, realistic way. For while there is a word for losing a wife (widower), or a husband (widow), or losing parents (orphan), there are no words to describe the horror of losing a child.
Adrift, unsure of how to cope with her grief, what way could Annie find to bring her daughter back? A normal reaction, after all, to want to see one's child again. But what if this refusal to accept reality is the gateway to horror? Guaranteed thrills for this film, which will be screened again as part of the festival at the Arcades cinema in Neuchâtel on Friday 13th. And of course.
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