Movie review: Life is short but art is lasting in 'Summer Hours'

Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, there are two things that remain when you die: others' memories of you, and the possessions you leave behind.

Writer-director Olivier Assayas' measured drama "Summer Hours" considers both bequests, and the struggles of three adult children settling the affairs and coping with the memories of their mother.

The mother is Hélène (Edith Scob), whose house in the French countryside is not so much a living space as a repository of her life's acquisitions and the work of her uncle, a famous French painter. When the family gathers for her 75th birthday party, Hélène tells her oldest son, Frédéric (Charles Berling), a Paris economist, what to

do with her possessions, but Frédéric would rather preserve the house as it is.

When Hélène dies, Frédéric discovers his siblings have other ideas. Neither Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a New York designer, nor Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), a tennis-shoe executive assigned to Shanghai, can afford the upkeep on the house -- or plans to return to France often. They would rather sell off Hélène's possessions and their great-uncle's art, or donate them to the Musée D'Orsay, the museum on the left bank of the Seine that is home to many Impressionist masterworks.

With fluid camerawork that weaves through family conversations like an unobtrusive

housefly, Assayas captures that moment when these adult siblings realize they are truly on their own. In that way, "Summer Hours" works as a smart follow-up to his 1998 film "Late August, Early September," which dealt with the transition from postcollegiate freedom to adult responsibility.

The movie also serves as a useful guide to the Musée D'Orsay, which cooperated in its production. (The original plan was for Assayas and three other directors to make short films to mark the

museum's 20th anniversary, but that idea fell through.) Assayas not only shows us the museum's processes for assessing and restoring donated works, but also traces the emotions of a family who sees their mother's old desk transform into a museum piece that thousands see every day.

With a cast that delivers subtle and heartaching performances across the board, "Summer Hours" is a quietly affecting story of a family torn by geography but united by blood and their mother's love of art, and how they reconcile the two. It's also a museum story that never feels as stuffy as a museum.

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