These things happen in lands without Advisory Neighborhood Commissions

My realtor called me up yesterday and told me she thought of me when she heard about Home, which showed at the Avalon Theatre last night as part of their monthly French Cinemathque series.

It's the story of a family living an idyllic, isolated, quirky, non-conformist-y existence somewhere in the French countryside. Their house is right next to a long-abandonded highway which is closed off to cars and which the family uses for such activities as street hockey games and leisurely, destination-less bike riding. They leave their belongings (wading pools, chairs, toys) strewn across the highway, and nobody ever bothers them. Then one day, their seven year old son mentions that while on his bike ride he noticed construction workers at the far end of the highway. Before the family knows it (because in the French countryside they don't have ANC meetings at which to discuss these issues to death), the highway is being paved in preparation to reopen it. Soon cars start to zoom past the house, destroying the family's nice quiet existence (the scenes of the first cars racing down the highway are hilariously accompanied by the voice of an announcer on the family's radio extolling the virtues of the reopened highway and how much easier it's going to make everybody's life). After the reopening, the family begins to unravel, while coming up with some drastic solutions for blocking the noise and creating some privacy; toward the end of the film the family's patriarch brings home a massive quantity of cinderblocks and blocks off all of the house's windows.

And my realtor totally said to me: "Promise me you won't block of all your house's windows with cinderblocks if the Walmart happens."

(I would never do such a thing; I enjoy sunlight.)

Home was only playing at the Avalon for one night, but it's available on Netflix streaming. Add it to your queue if you enjoy bizarre films.