The House in Corsica

When Christine (Christelle Cornil) inherits a run-down house in the middle of nowhere in Corsica from her late grandmother, she is initially a little disappointed. However, the sale might bring her some money, which could brighten up the dreary daily life of the nearly 30-year-old, who has been listlessly toiling away at a job in her father-in-law's pizzeria for years. But when the Belgian goes to Corsica to see the house, the visit to the seclusion of the mountain landscape triggers something in her, a forgotten longing for self-determination and joie de vivre. And so, against the advice of her parents and boyfriend, Christine decides to keep the house and fix it up. But this proves extremely difficult for several reasons...

With The House in Corsica, filmmaker Pierre Duculot has delivered a very quiet feature debut that lives primarily on its beguiling imagery and its lead actress Christelle Cornil. With its staging, the film joins numerous other European arthouse productions that tell their stories in a completely unagitated manner, often presenting long scenes in which, strictly speaking, nothing happens at all. This creates a drastic antithesis to the ever louder and faster mainstream cinema. This is certainly very effective in its own way, but at some point this effect simply wears off and cultivated boredom dominates.

This is something even The House in Corsica cannot completely escape. Especially since Duculot moves on rather conventional paths from a dramaturgical point of view and in the last third even tries to use clichés that are too thickly applied, which the film in itself wouldn't have needed at all. Another problem is the elaboration of Christine's motives to risk everything against all reason in order to rebuild her grandma's house. As nice as their backstory is worked into the movie, as good as it is to understand why the landscape seems so fascinating and enchanting to Christine especially in comparison to her life in the dreary Belgian mining town, I personally had a big problem with the way she acted towards her family and her boyfriend. Fine, the latter just wouldn't listen to her. But the way she just leaves him, especially after what happened between her and the goatherd Pascal, didn't exactly make her a great sympathizer for me. But I'm sure that's just a matter of opinion...

The House in Corsica, in its quiet, understated way, is definitely something of a holiday for the soul for viewers who can get into that kind of production. It is a sympathetic, but also challenging film due to its slowness, which is able to build up a particularly engaging atmosphere with its beautiful images. Those who need something more than silence and beautiful scenery will definitely find the whole thing a bit boring. But if you just want to relax in the cinema and like program cinema fare of the particularly quiet kind, you can confidently take a trip to the house in Corsica. Worth seeing

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp