FAREWELL HOME SWEET HOME

Somwhere, the spirit of Jacques Tati is beaming down in approval upon Otar Iosseliani's latest feature, a droll and deadpan comedy with minimal dialogue, no closeups and precise, neutral camera positions capturing the warmth and strangeness of an absurd, wealthy family on the outskirts of a cosmopolitan city. Mother is a chic tycoon who Has It All: the mansion, the butlers, the helicopter, the secret lover, the performing stork (performing stork?), and an aged, useless husband who plays with toy trains, skeet-shoots boomerangs, and gets on far better with the servants (especially the young maids) than with his wife's aristocratic circle. Their eldest son, meanwhile, chooses to dwell in town without assistance, subsisting on his income as a particularly bad dishwasher. Nonetheless, he has made up his mind to marry the beautiful daughter of a cafe owner, even though the girl doesn't know him at all. Like his father, the boy finds fraternity in the lowest rungs of society among the clochards, street apaches, and hobo-like laborers. But he seems happy, and by the end everyone pretty much has what he or she wants ? or deserves. “Most of us have never seen a film by Otar Iosseliani,” lamented Georgia Brown in the Village Voice, calling that a reason for despair. Despair no longer. (In French with English subtitles.)