Parc is a 2008 French

Cinema of France

The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...

 drama film directed by Arnaud des Pallières. The film is based on John Cheever

John Cheever

John William Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy,...

's 1969 novel, Bullet Park

Bullet Park

Bullet Park is a 1969 novel by American Novelist John Cheever about an earnest yet pensive father Eliot Nailles and his troubled son Tony, and their predestined fate with a psychotic man Hammer, who moves to Bullet Park to sacrifice one of them...

. The film stars Sergi López

Sergi López

Sergi López i Ayats is a Spanish actor.-Early life:Sergi López was initiated in theater in representations of typical Catalan nativity plays called Els Pastorets, in his native city. He started to study theater in Barcelona but completed his studies in France, in the school of Jacques Lecoq...

, Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr is a French-American film actor and director. His mother is French. His American father was in the US Air Force and served in the Second World War. Jean-Marc Barr is primarily known as an actor, but is also a film director, screenwriter and producer...

 and Geraldine Chaplin

Geraldine Chaplin

Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...

. The film received its international premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

2008 Toronto International Film Festival

The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This 33rd annual festival was from September 4 to September 13, 2008...

 on 11 September.

Plot

Georges Clou (Lopez) is a successful salesman, enjoying the fruits of his labour as a resident of an exclusive gated community in the French Riviera. His life is seemingly idyllic, a beautiful home, a loving wife and a son. Appearances are deceptive as this idyllic vision is spoiled by the traumas his teenage son endures. Elsewhere in the community, Paul Marteau (Barr), arrives with a troubled past and uncertain future.

Cast

• Sergi López
  Sergi López
  Sergi López i Ayats is a Spanish actor.-Early life:Sergi López was initiated in theater in representations of typical Catalan nativity plays called Els Pastorets, in his native city. He started to study theater in Barcelona but completed his studies in France, in the school of Jacques Lecoq...
  
   as Georges Clou
• Jean-Marc Barr
  Jean-Marc Barr
  Jean-Marc Barr is a French-American film actor and director. His mother is French. His American father was in the US Air Force and served in the Second World War. Jean-Marc Barr is primarily known as an actor, but is also a film director, screenwriter and producer...
  
   as Paul Marteau
• Geraldine Chaplin
  Geraldine Chaplin
  Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
  
   as La mère de Marteau
• Nathalie Richard
  Nathalie Richard
  Nathalie Richard is a French actress.Richard was born in Paris, France. She received the Prix Michel Simon film prize for most promising actress/actor for her role in the 1988 Jacques Rivette film Gang of Four.-Filmography:...
  
   as Hélène Clou
• Laurent Delbecque as Toni Clou
• Delphine Chuillot as Evelyn Marteau
• Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  Jean-Pierre Kalfon is a French film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* The Rabbi's Cat * Parc * The Dreamers * Lulu * La Repetition...
  
   as Le propriétaire
• László Szabó
  László Szabó (actor)
  László Szabó is a Hungarian actor, film director and screenwriter. He has appeared in over 120 films since 1952, including seven films that have been screened at the Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:* La poupée...
  
   as Le guérisseur Balthazar Rutuola

Production

For the adaptation, the filmmaker transported the script from the United States to the French Riviera

French Riviera

The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...

, with most of the action taking place around Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

.

Reception

Positif

Positif (magazine)

Positif is a French film magazine, founded in 1952 by Bernard Chardère. It was published by Eric Losfeld.It often acted as a counterpoint to Cahiers du cinéma, another well-known French film journal, notably with Gerard Gozlan's article sarcastically titled "In Praise of André Bazin."The current...

described the film as "a curious fusion between the world of Chabrol

Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol was a French film director, a member of the French New Wave group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s...

 and Lynch

David Lynch

David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...

that awakens a riot of empathic anti-establishment feeling".