We know how the mushroom trial ended. In this film, we can’t be sure

In one of those strange confluences of art and real life, Francois Ozon’s When Fall Is Coming is getting its Australian release just as the dust settles on the closely watched trial of Erin Patterson. The film hinges on another mushroom poisoning, this time cooked in what looks like a delicious fricassee by an elderly mother for her daughter and grandson. The film had its international premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival last year, long before the beef Wellington story spread to Europe. Recent events do, however, lend Ozon’s elusive, charming film an extra tang.

Michelle (Helene Vincent) is 70 years old, living in a picturesque cottage on the outskirts of a small town in Burgundy. She gardens; she cooks and makes preserves; she has the typical French reverence for eating that means she sets the table properly even when she is alone. Her most constant companion is Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), a longstanding friend of similar age; the two of them go foraging in the woods, go to church on Sundays, and enjoy a wine or two.

Ludivine Sagnier and Helene Vincent play a warring mother and daughter in When Fall Is Coming.Credit: Rialto Films

But all is not calm. Michelle’s daughter, Valerie (Ludivine Sagnier), hates her and is rude and vicious and demanding. Michelle, desperate to maintain her close kinship with Lucas, her beloved grandson, tries to mollify her, but in vain. When Valerie is taken ill after their lunch, she accuses her mother of trying to kill her. Michelle wonders if that might be true. Is she losing her wits? Or does some part of her want to get rid of this bitter, bullying woman, even if she is her daughter? Wouldn’t life be better if Valerie were dead?

It is the unspeakable question; this film asks it aloud. “I had in mind a very good friend of mine who had an addicted son,” Ozon says. “Her life was so difficult, and when he died of an overdose, she was relieved. Of course, she was totally destroyed. But that’s the strength of nature – you are able to survive.”

Marie-Claude is more inclined to blame herself for the fact that her hapless son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) has led a life of petty crime, culminating in his current prison sentence. “She asks herself: what have we done wrong with our children? And Michelle answers, ‘we did our best’,” Ozon says. “And I think Michelle is heroic to have this reaction, but at the same time she’s monstrous.” Whether the poisoning was accidental is never resolved. “Life is full of ambiguity, contradictions, it is not black-and-white,” Ozon says. “And that is what I like to show. I like all my characters.”

Even snarling Valerie, who begins as an unambiguous hate figure, has her reasons, at least in her own mind. Her sweet, elfin-faced mother made her living as a prostitute; she and Marie-Claude worked together. People found out; of course they did. Valerie can never forgive her mother for that shame. That idea, says Ozon, came to him as this poisoned family took shape in his mind.

“It was step by step. I liked the idea of a woman with a past – and the fact that the past is always coming back in your life. You can’t erase it. I did a lot of research into children with mothers who were prostitutes. I realised there were two kinds of reaction. Some children punish their mothers with shame. Others understand it, accept and think their mothers were just victims of social circumstances. And try to help them, especially as they age. Because in France, prostitutes have no place. They don’t have pensions or social security. Really, it’s a very strong thing for spectators to respond to this in their imaginations. To make them understand the situation.”

In a filmography otherwise distinguished by its variety, ageing women have been Ozon’s go-to subject. “I love old people in movies – and old women have been rendered almost invisible,” he says. “Maybe less in France because we love our old actresses – but then, some old actresses in France don’t look old any more! I love to have real actresses whom we can see are 70 or 80 years old, the idea they are beautiful as they are. And filming them in a natural way, you know.”

That requires their trust, which he has built up with several of France’s senior stars over the years. “The advantage with old actresses is that the past is on their faces. So it is very touching when they let you make some close-ups. Helene Vincent is a great actress, and you see her life on her face or just in her way of walking. Just watching her can tell us so many things.”

François Ozon: “I leave space for the audience to make their own judgment.”Credit: Getty Images

His choices still meet some resistance. “I never say I want to make a political movie, but equally I realise that to choose two old actresses as the leads is political,” he says. Still, he adds that things are better than they used to be. In 2000, he made the first of three collaborations with Charlotte Rampling. Under the Sand is a spare and enigmatic film about a woman whose husband goes missing, presumed drowned, after going for a swim one morning. “I couldn’t find the money. Everybody tells me Charlotte Rampling is too old: she will interest nobody. And she was only 50! Can you imagine?”

Undeterred, he made a splash two years later with his murder mystery musical Eight Women, which featured Fanny Ardant, Catherine Deneuve and an 85-year-old Danielle Darrieux; it brought him an international audience and remains his most critically and commercially successful film. “Hopefully things have changed now. It was not so difficult to finance this time.”

Ozon has been surprised by the responses he has had to the new film. “It is an amoral movie. I leave space for the audience to make their own judgment of the situations; I like this game with an audience. But sometimes you think much more perverse things than I have in mind; it’s amazing to hear some spectators say what they have seen in the story. Sometimes I’m shocked!” He smiles urbanely; it is hard to imagine what on earth would shock Francois Ozon.

“But the film doesn’t belong to me any more. It’s very touching when someone puts his own obsession into your story because often people are talking about themselves, especially in a film about family relationships. Some women feel very close to Michelle. Others say that she is a monster: her daughter is suffering.”

Helene Vincent and Josiane Balasko plays friends with a past in When Fall Is Coming.Credit: Rialto Films

For others, the mushroom becomes a metaphor for the toxicity in the family. “And why not? If you want to see that, why not? For me, it was more about nature – and the fact nature can be beautiful and dangerous at the same time.”

Like these aged women, he adds, looking impish. “I like the idea Michelle looks like a perfect grandmother, but she is more complex. It is kind of a cliche to idealise old people. Old people can be dangerous! Be careful!”

So, is she guilty? Unlike real mushroom poisoners, Michelle never faces court, so never answers the key questions. Ozon says he knows the answers, but he won’t tell. In San Sebastian, where foraging for mushrooms is part of life, audience sympathies were with Michelle; a mushroom mistake could happen to anyone. For Australians, it may be another story.

When Fall Is Coming is in cinemas from July 31.

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