In 1975, Nicolas Philibert, the excellent French documentarist, was an assistant to René Allio when he made I, Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother - a reconstruction of an 1830s murder which explored why a country boy was driven to kill his father's tormentors.
Philibert had to find the amateur actors who could be persuaded to play the parts in the film. Now he has gone back to Normandy to seek them out again and ask what they thought of the proceedings.
Back to Normandy is as much a portrait of working people as a memoir and you really need to couple it with the original film to make full sense of Philibert's probing (both will be released on DVD together later this year). But even on its own, Philibert's film is impressive.
It shows how ordinary people, involved in what was an impressive reconstruction of an extraordinary story, simply got on with their lives afterwards, largely unaffected.
There are hints that not all of them did but Philibert doesn't press the point. He just watches with an eloquent camera that's determined not to find false drama.
Back To Normandy (Retour En Normandie)
Cert: 12A
