Miryam Charles has a very interesting story to tell: her teenage cousin Tessa died in 2008. Tessa's death was definitely not peaceful and there is some ambiguity over suicide versus murder.
Charles showcases conversations with an adult version of Tessa (Schelby Jean-Baptiste) and her mother Valeska (Florence Blain Mbaye) in Cette Maison | This House.
The 2022 film features documentary-type footage of the family's homeland of Haiti. The house in question is in Bridgeport, CT, where she died. Tessa was born in Stamford, CT in 1994.
The main pull of the film is the mother-daughter connection, playing what if scenarios that often happen after a young person dies. The daughter is gathered in an indoor garden in the living room.
The film struggles with not following through on elements of the story that might be noteworthy or interesting. As lovely as the dialogue might be, there isn't anything too meaningful in their exchange. When you give up, and you will, on trying to make some sense of the story, you might enjoy the film a bit more.
There is a lot of repeated dialogue and imagery that goes in small circles. There is the idea of not being able to recognize things in memory.
We are told Quebec will play a part of the story. We get a brief setting in Montréal as the family is watching the 1995 referendum results on June 12. The narrator voice talks about how the family would be forced to leave Quebec if the "oui" side wins.
Here is the problem. As we know, the "non" side won yet the family did leave Quebec for Connecticut. Also, if Tessa was born in Connecticut in 1994 and she is about 1 years old at the time of the referendum, did the family move to Quebec and then move back to Connecticut. We ignore the fact that the adult version is sitting alongside her family in Montréal at events she couldn't remember.
The film does not stay long in Quebec. If Tessa was shaped by anything element involving Canada, this isn't clear in the film.
Cette Maison is a timid film where Charles wants to explore questions and yet doesn't want to explore the answers. Surreal can be entertaining enough but the audience isn't hooked into the story even if the filmgoer wants to make that work.
Take the film for what it is but you will feel the frustration of wanting to know more of something, anything.
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Cette maison | This House made the Toronto International Film Festival Canada's Top Ten list for 2022. This is the final film from that list that your humble narrator has now seen. The film is available on the Criterion Channel online.
photo credit: Cette maison | This House
video credit: TIFF Trailers
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