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21st Century Cinema

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1h 42m

Directed by Ursula Meier • 2008 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adélaïde Leroux

This mesmerizing fable of modern family life stars Isabelle Huppert as Marthe, a happy-go-lucky mother whose family enjoys an idyllic existence in their isolated, ramshackle home, which edges onto an abandoned highway. Almost entirely cut off from society at large, they forge their own utopia. Everything changes when city trucks roll in to complete the road’s construction, allowing rush-hour traffic to start rumbling by. Refusing to give up their solitude, Marthe, her husband Michael (Olivier Gourmet), and their three children resort to increasingly desperate measures to insulate themselves from the pollution creeping inside their windows.

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