On June 3rd 1835, Pierre Riviere, a native of La Faucterie in Normandy, took a billhook to his mother, his sister and his brother. Having killed them, he left the village to live in the woods. Upon being captured, he wrote a lengthy statement explaining his crime. A remarkably literate work, this statement was published as a pamphlet for popular consumption. In 1973, the philosopher Michel Foucault edited a collection of contemporary sources from the case, including Pierre’s statement. Foucault and his colleagues were astonished by both the completeness of the documentation – unusual for a 140 year old case – and fascinated by how one single event could produce so many different discourses
This book, which became an international success, is the basis of Rene Allio’s film, I, Pierre Riviere, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother. A great admirer of Foucault’s work, Allio wished to honour it. But he also wished to make a film about the peasant experience of the time and give voice to a subjugated class – Riviere’s statement, containing much social context, is that voice and his story is a tragedy not only of a family but also of a people governed by hunger and poverty. Essentially, this is a film about an act which took place many years before but which is somehow still reverberating within the area and the people. Allio’s film is not only made on the same locations where the crime was committed but instead of actors, uses the people of the area, many of whom were descended from the people they play in the film. They play out their own family stories and the result is emotionally overwhelming – a commemoration and, in some way, a celebration of a people. —Mike Sutton, homecinema.thedigitalfix.co.uk
