Written by Andreas Babiolakis

This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. The Son’s Room won the forty sixth Palme d’Or at the 2001 festival.

The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Liv Ullman.
Jury: Mimmo Calopresti, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Terry Gilliam, Mathieu Kassovitz, Sandrine Kiberlain, Philippe Labro, Julia Ormond, Moufida Tlatli, Edward Yang.

“Here we are
Stuck by this river
You and I
Underneath a sky that's ever falling down, down, down
Ever falling down
—
Through the day
As if on an ocean
Waiting here
Always failing to remember why we came, came, came
I wonder why we came
—
You talk to me
As if from a distance
And I reply
With impressions chosen from another time, time, time
From another time”
-Brian Eno: “By This River”

The thing about Brian Eno's art rock era is that his lyrics aren't meant to carry much meaning. He sees the human voice as just another instrument, and he picked the words that sounded the most fitting musically, not logically. This leaves his songs highly interpretational, but the one song I never had the luxury of giving my own take on is featured above: "By This River". I watched The Son's Room before I got acquainted with Eno's music, and I could never shake off Nanni Moretti's personal take on the surreal songwriting (it is used during a pivotal scene: as a turning point of acceptance during hardship). I can't disassociate the heartache of a family member longing for their passed loved one, as he imagines that one day they will see each other again in some afterlife, watching life itself take another shape but knowing that they are together. For me, death is noticing those we miss in all that we love, so I take "By This River" more literally: feeling the presence of the dearly departed beside us and in all the little things that bring a spark to our lives. The world itself may feel like it is crumbling around us, and nothing else will make sense but that little semblance of life that we get from those we love the most.

Moretti's Palme d'Or winning The Son's Room deals with a grieving family, particularly the patriarchal therapist that has usually practiced the mental traumas of others as another day at the office. Once his teenaged son suddenly dies during a scuba diving accident, he is forced to reevaluate how he handles the hurt within others: he is now one of his own patients. No longer are these just diagnoses: these are permanent elements of broken people (the glue to fill in the void, only to shatter us additionally). This father, Giovanni (played by the director Moretti), understands this once and for all. Now, it's time to heal, but how can he when he feels barely prepared? No one will ever be ready for death, be it our own or that of another. Life is extremely short, but it feels challenging to try to live out when those that we care about die around us. The Son's Room is about finding that haven, and you can figure out by the eponymous location that Giovanni tries to make the most sense of who he has lost and needs to remember by discovering more about who he was when he was still alive.

You don't watch The Son's Room to have a good time, but that isn't what I mean when I say that it is the kind of film that you experience once and that is good enough. It isn't the strongest film to deal with such a subject matter, but everyone grieves differently. This is important to Moretti, and this is his own way of dealing with death. You can watch the film and understand: maybe you can even incorporate The Son's Room into how you view the subject. As it stands, this is a quiet, introverted perspective on the pains of loss, and maybe that's exactly what you need if you yourself are hurting. I don't think Moretti was wanting to win awards with this film (despite, you know, the one he did win); rather he was sharing a human experience with his audience, to check in on us if we are lost and to let us know that everyone will go through this process. For this, I admire The Son's Room. We will always search for answers, and The Son's Room doesn't have any for us, either. We can't change what has happened. We can only shift how we respond to it, and how we take care of the memory and legacy of those we love. There's something very noble with Moretti's soft approach to the worst element of being alive: it is his version, and I respect it for remaining his own (with the open possibility of being ours, should we need something to make our own experiences understandable).

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.