La Maison des bois

Made in 1971 for French TV, this epic film comes from early in the Pialat's belated feature-filmmaking career. It begins in costume drama and an ethnographic view of rural French life during World War One, and in an apparently sentimental tale of war orphans. But then it irises out from costume drama conventions into the transcendental, exploring Pialat*s spiritual themes, as well as the social dynamics, trauma and collective experiences of war. (KG)