The Super 8 Years

Released Dec 16, 2022

1h 2m

Documentary

Biography

List

92%

26 Reviews

Tomatometer

80%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following (and whose autobiographical L'Événement was adapted just last year into the critically acclaimed film Happening), opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family's memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 -- when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went -- this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Ernaux's ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

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Critics Consensus

The Super 8 Years adds some personal context to Annie Ernaux's work while taking a bittersweet look back at a bygone era.

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David Ernaux-Briot

Director

Annie Ernaux

Director

Annie Ernaux

Narrator

Annie Ernaux

Writer

David Thion

Producer

Philippe Martin

Producer

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Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

It’s a wisp of a thing, little more than an hour long. But Ernaux’s lucid, perceptive narration brings a more profound significance to the scrappy, amateurish reels shot by her late ex-husband, Philippe Ernaux.

Rated: 3/5

Jun 27, 2023

Full Review

Kevin Maher

Times (UK)

Ernaux’s righteous feminism is subsumed by the huffy virtue signaling of a first-world moaner who doesn’t like skiing holidays, is bored by Moroccan snake charmers and is annoyed because she didn’t get to see “the real Albania”.

Rated: 2/5

Jun 26, 2023

Full Review

Danny Leigh

Financial Times

A slim film containing multitudes: a slice of life and time, richly grained with recollective detail. The images have a deceptive, universal simplicity.

Rated: 4/5

Jun 22, 2023

Full Review

Fedor Tot

WeLoveCinema

Astonishing diary film knits together the personal and political

Rated: 4/5

Sep 20, 2023

Full Review

Maria Lattila

WhyNow (UK)

The Super 8 Years flirts with greatness and fleetingly even achieves it, but ultimately falls victim to the limits of its medium.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 7, 2023

Full Review

Victoria Luxford

City AM

The Super-8 Years might not be the most focused work of Ernaux’s career, but it offers a glimpse into the kind of personal intimacy that made her so beloved. A compact and worthwhile companion to all fans of her work.

Rated: 4/5

Jul 5, 2023

Full Review

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Synopsis

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following (and whose autobiographical L'Événement was adapted just last year into the critically acclaimed film Happening), opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family's memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 -- when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went -- this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Ernaux's ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

Director: David Ernaux-Briot, Annie Ernaux
Screenwriter: Annie Ernaux
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: Les Films Pelléas
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 16, 2022, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $14.6K
Runtime: 1h 2m
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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