The story of a Normandy farmer’s son who killed half his family with a billhook in 1835, Rene Allio’s 1975 drama I, Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother… will have even the most ardent cinephile reaching for the reference books.
Luckily, the film’s assistant director Nicolas Philibert – fresh from the success of why-aren’t-all-schools-like-this documentary Etre et Avoir and caught in the grip of nostalgia – is here to tell us all about the production while asking ‘where are they now?’ of its non-professional cast.
Shooting a couple of miles from the scene of Rivière’s crime, Allio wanted members of the local community to play the key roles. Casting duties fell to Philibert.
Hence the easy rapport he strikes up with his unassuming ‘stars’. Reminiscences are warm and readily shared. The camera is welcome. But for most – with the exception of the mysterious and elusive Claude Hébert who played Rivière - the movie was not a life-changing event.
Unconcerned with either structure or pace, Philibert intersperses snapshots of their daily lives with clips from the original film as he delves a little deeper into both Rivière’s case and Allio’s efforts to film it.
It’s a highly personal journey with no real point to make, simply a tying up of loose ends culminating in a refreshingly tear-free mini-reunion.
Those of a delicate disposition, however, might find the apparently gratuitous filming of a pig being slaughtered rather less pleasant.
But as the film begins with one piglet’s rough introduction to the world, it’s clear that Philibert simply wants to demonstrate that not much has changed in the province since Rivière’s day.
Less Etre et Avoir than Etre et Abattoir then, but this is still an unhurried and abstractly endearing tale of indie filmmaking and everyday country folk.
Elliott Noble
