Merry Christmas

Despite all this variation, Christmas movies are an international tradition. We have two very different examples for you today. Alli Neumann and Kostja Ullmann ...

It’s emotionally relatable for anyone who’s been at those family Christmases, and even more so for anyone who remembers the things you “always do at Christmas” that you don’t get to do any more. The following day (the 25th) is often a day for family outings, summer weather permitting. Equally relatable is Jorge’s statement at the end, that Christmas is “the perfect time to stop for a while, take a deep breath, and notice that life is more than what happens while we work to pay the bills.” I hope you all get a chance to catch your breath this Christmas, and I’ll see you for more Subtext next year. (Religious sorts would head off to midnight mass after the meal, but clearly Jorge’s family aren’t religious.) Since Brazil is (mostly) in the southern hemisphere it’s summer at Christmas, with warm nights. The next day he wakes up – and it’s Christmas Eve again, the following year. A big family party on the night of the 24th, with a meal at 10pm and presents exchanged after midnight. With these themes and plot, it’s not surprising that director Detlev Buck is a fan of the Coen brothers. During the year he doesn’t remember Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Eve he remembers nothing else. Buck grew up in the country as the child of farmers, and this comes across in the sharp but authentic observations of country life that the film is based on. The central figure of Hermann (played by Sascha Alexander Geršak) is especially compelling as the local “strong man” who sees his power crumbling along with the local economy. Even something like the traditional Christmas dinner varies wildly, with Norway eating roast pork, Eastern European countries having a feast of fish, and some Germans even getting a traditional meal of rabbit. After the two have sex in his camper van, she persuades him the next morning to head back to her home town with her for Christmas.