François Ozon’s films are as varied in tone and topic as Steven Soderbergh’s, but since he’s French that tone and those topics exude a European sensibility that doesn’t always export readily to other regions. The title of his latest, When Fall Is Coming (titled more cleverly When Autumn Falls in Anglophone countries aligned with British English), sounds like a gloss on Eric Rohmer, and for the first 15 minutes or so I expected one of Rohmer’s typically dialogue-driven morality tales, but once the spiky plot kicked in it occurred to me that Ozon has been spooked by the sudden international interest in the films of compatriot Alain Guiraudie and decided he could do that too. For much of the film, we’re not sure about the fraught relationship between the main character, an elderly woman named Michelle (Hélène Vincent) who lives comfortably by herself in the French countryside, and her daughter, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier). Michelle exists for her sole grandchild, 10-year-old Lucas (Garlan Erlos), and as the film opens she is eagerly anticipating his arrival for the summer. However, an unfortunate culinary choice on Michelle’s part lands Valérie in the hospital, and, enraged, she decides to cancel Lucas’s summer vacation with Michelle, which devastates the older woman. There’s obviously bad blood between mother and daughter, but Ozon, like Guiraudie, withholds information until late in the movie.

The vehicle of exposition is Vincent (Pierre Lottin), the ne’er-do-well son of Michelle’s best friend, Marie-Claude (Josiane Ballasko), who has just been released from prison for an undisclosed crime. Michelle, in a gesture that at first seems like a favor to Marie-Claude, hires Vincent to work around her property and then offers him a “loan” to carry out what he really wants to do, open a bar, an enterprise that even Marie-Claude finds problematic given Vincent’s mercurial temperament. Michelle’s largesse becomes even more suspicious when tragedy strikes Valérie, who is going through a messy divorce from Lucas’s father and is having problems at work. Ozon provides plenty of hints that Vincent has something to do with the tragedy and various interested parties, including the viewer, can’t help but wonder if wheels aren’t being greased to bring about a mostly satisfying outcome for both Michelle and Vincent. Even the police get involved, but, like the audience, can’t quite penetrate the hazy veil of ostensibly good intentions that hangs between the known facts and the actual truth. Suffice to say that Michelle’s troubled relationship with Valérie is eventually explained with the kind of forthrightness that Guiraudie rarely exhibits. The movie could have been more accurately titled Secrets and Lies, except that Ozon is too coy to give us any indication of what we should accept as the truth.

He knows how to layer the story. In the end, the gestalt of the attendees at a funeral says more about the social milieu inhabited by Michelle and Marie-Claude than any specific plot point. But the movie throws so many red herrings in the story’s path that you may get the feeling Ozon is just trying to put you on. Michelle is a wonderful character—a truly adorable Gaullist grandma with a steady command of her ethical compass—and a simpler movie about her life would probably have been more appealing. 

One of the hallmarks of the above-mentioned French sensibility in terms of narrative presentation is humor that often feels off to non-Europeans. It’s present in Ozon’s film, but is much more pronounced in actor Laetitia Dosch’s directoral debut, Dog on Trial, which distills several actual cases regarding animal rights in Switzerland into a treatise on how legal arguments can and can’t be applied to situations involving non-human subjects. 

Dosch stars as Avril Lucciani, a self-styled “lawyer for lost causes,” whose boss wants her to be more realistic about the cases she takes, since her dedication to human rights never results in victory in court. Nevertheless, she decides to take on Cosmos, a sad-eyed mutt who has been accused of biting a woman on the face and causing a disfigurement requiring plastic surgery. It is apparently not Cosmos’s first offense and the trial will determine not only if his human companion, a poor, disabled, but spirited man named Dariuch (François Damiens), will have to pay compensation, but also if Cosmos is to be put down. The essential hurdle for Avril is that Swiss law designates animals as “things” without agency or rights, and thus the very idea of a dog being granted due process is not guaranteed, but eventually the timid judge (Mathieu Demy) agrees to hear the case. 

Though hilarity doesn’t immediately ensue, it’s not for want of trying. The lawyer for the plaintiff is a grandstanding demogogue running for mayor who refuses to countenance Avril’s brainy approach to her defense, which involves bringing in animal psychologists, professional dog trainers, and a decidedly ridiculous experiment in cross-examining Cosmos—which he, predictably, fails. Even religious experts are called to testify, leading to an interfaith discussion of the morality of castration. Several distracting subplots include Avril’s adolescent neighbor, Joachim (Tom Fiszelson), whom she believies is being abused by his parents, and Avril’s checkered love life. Dosch treats it all with a disarmingly light touch that can be funny when the mood suits the material, but since she’s addressing a genuine social issue—do domestic animals have rights?—many of the jokes feel flat-footed. Personally, I was quite shocked by Cosmos’s fate, since it was explained in such an offhanded way. The dog who played him certainly had the most expressive face of any of the actors. He deserved better. 

When Fall Is Coming, in French, now playing in Tokyo at Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001).

Dog on Trial, in French, now playing in Tokyo at Cine Switch Ginza (03-3561-0707).

When Fall Is Coming home page in Japanese

Dog on Trial home page in Japanese

When Fall Is Coming photo (c) 2024-FOZ-France 2 Cinema-Playtime

Dog on Trial photo (c) Bande a Part-Atelier de Production-France 2 Cinema-RTS Radio Television Suisse-SRG SSR-2024