Domain
Directed by Patric Chiha
 | Read the San Francisco Chronicle review Read director Patric Chiha's Indiwire tribute to Béatrice Dalle |
FIRST RUN PREMIERE ENGAGEMENT This moody, contemplative drama explores the unusual and unusually intimate relationship between an aunt and her nephew. Nadine, a single mathematician in her 40s, is struggling with alcoholism. Pierre, her 17-year-old nephew, is coming to terms with his sexuality. First-time filmmaker Patric Chiha, however, doesn’t package things so neatly. Instead, he reveals this story patiently and with suspenseful restraint allowing room for silence, facial expressions and body language to do their work. Indeed, the pair’s precise relationship unfolds with provocative ambiguity. Nadine’s alluring mystique, however, remains unmistakable. She’s worldly, educated, wild and mischievous; and she dazzles Pierre with captivating stories from her past on their daily walks through the park. They seem to be happy only when together, and their closeness borders on the inappropriate but doesn’t actually cross into the taboo. It is strange, nonetheless. Pierre picks out her dresses, tucks her in at night and sometimes even washes her legs. He ditches his friends for her. Nadine seems to need him too, but as her alcoholism gets worse, their closeness unravels. Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) is mesmerizing throughout. She’s unpredictable and mysterious but also somehow comforting. Domain is in some ways a coming-of-age story and in others a love story, but Chiha doesn’t play either straight. The result is something much more complicated and remarkable.
“My favorite movie of the year. A forty-year-old alcoholic aunt (played by Béatrice Dalle—“Betty Blue” herself!) and her gayish teenage nephew form a perversely close relationship by taking walks together. Lots of walks! So many walks you’ll be left breathless by the sheer elegance of this astonishing little workout.” —John Waters
"'Domain' [is] a nuanced character study that showcases the considerable acting chops of Beatrice Dalle ('Betty Blue'), who commands the screen from the first frame, when she hosts a late-night, outdoor drinking fest and babbles on about how mathematics—and not words—create order."
—David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle
“A film shaped by the divide between appearance and reality—or, more to the point, perceived order and underlying chaos. 3 1/2 stars.” —Slant Magazine
“The glamorous, gap-toothed Ms. Dalle—who devoured men wholesale in Claire Denis’s delirious cannibal-vampire dirge Trouble Every Day—has a new target to consume in Patric Chiha’s captivating first feature. 4 stars.” —Time Out New York
Dalle is just made for these loony-sexpot roles... She doesn't disappoint here: Her Nadia is voracious, an appetite walking around on two impossibly long stems. —Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline
Dalle, with a mouth that could devour the world, unravels inexorably but with decadent dignity, and Chiha's singular film never relies on cliché in its examination of illness, disappointment, and abandonment. —The Village Voice
Domaine, France 2010, 110 min. Written by Patric Chiha. Photographed by Pascal Poucet. With Béatrice Dalle, Isaïe Sultan, Alain Libolt, Sylvie Rohrer. In French with subtitles. Strand Releasing.
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office open online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema.
February 3–9, 2012
Showtimes 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)
Showtimes 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)