Die Farbe der Lüge

Claude Chabrol had directed about 50 movies since 1957. Sometimes, he's very good, but when he's bad, he's really boring. This movie is boring, despite the good efforts of asking the spectators who had killing the little girl and the writer. It's too long, too low key. But the biggest problem of the movie is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. I never saw such a weak actress. She don't have any credibility in the role of the police inspector. She's inexpressive and had an horrible voice. She can't articulate and most of the time, we don't understand or hear what's she's saying! Sandrine Bonnaire seems to be anywhere except in her role, but Jacques Gamblin is good. Too bad for Chabrol's fans!

Although Claude Chabrol has worked predominantly in the crime genre, and adapted much mystery fiction, very few of his films are straight whodunits. Crimes may be the central feature of these films, or the catalyst at least, and investigations may shape these narratives and bring them to their conclusion, if not resolution. But Chabrol is usually more interested in focusing on point-of-view, of the killer, the victims, the suspects, the community, than in any who's-the-killer games. So 'Au coeur du mensonge' belongs to a relatively marginalised (and recent) position in Chabrol's filmography; its most famous predecessors are 'Cop au vin' and 'Inspecteur Lavardin' (although there are important echoes of earlier Chabrol classics like 'Que le bete meure' and 'Le Boucher').

However, just because we don't know who committed the two murders until the end, this doesn't mean Chabrol is only interested in artifical games. The limits of the whodunit paradoxically give Chabrol the freedom from delineating the psychology of the criminal, to something much more interesting to him; in other words, the unknowability of other people, especially those we love, live with and think we know best.

Chabrol's films are so self-contained and remote, that it's rare to find him concentrating on 'topical' issues. Here the subject is the all-too-familiar paedophile rape and murder of a young girl in the woods. She was last seen at a lesson with her art teacher, Rene, and suspicion immediately falls on him, in one of those oppressive small towns where the Internet will never outpace malicious gossip. If we didn't know whodunits, we might think so too - he is lame, shifty looking, whiny, and a failed artist experiencing mental breakdown who thinks his masseuse wife, Vivianne, is having an affair with a slick media personality, G.R.

There are other suspects: G.R. himself, his criminal go-between, and Rene's friend, Regis, even, as the coroner cheerfully suggests, a woman with strong hands and gloves - an exact description of Vivianne earlier. But it is Rene everyone suspects, especially the new Chief Inspector, Lesage, whose personal stake in the case (she has a daughter of the same age as the dead girl) makes her determined to bring him to justice.

'Mensonge' is a psychological study in the guise of a mystery thriller. We are asked to follow Rene's reactions to the murder, social ostracism, artistic failure etc., and yet we're not told whether he's the murderer or not, or any of the other characters, which would surely be a crucial element in anyone's psychology! so these two impulses - towards psychological truth and towards a mystery story which necessarily precludes the audience having any access to the character's psychology, puts it with the same level of knowledge of characters as the other characters, making for an effectively tense film, which, beyond its mystery trappings, asks whether we can ever know anyone, when trust, or self-confidence, or faith in 'reality' is gone.

The film links the idea of lies (characters concealing truths, making realities out of lies), with art (painting - Jacques revels in panoramas and trompes d'oeil; the second murder is 'composed' like a painting). Throughout, various media for the diffusion of truth - painting, TV, books, recitals - as well as the police investigation, with its need for artistic resolution, are highlighted, interrogated and undermined (even a last minute confession is suspect, and the denouement, appropriately, takes place in a deep mist). Chabrol's blithely elliptical narrative style further compounds our uncertainty. As with every Chabrol, the surface every character sees, or creates, is as treacherous as a trompe d'oeil. As the child-murder in the forest, echoing 'Diary of a Chambermaid', suggests, Chabrol is letting out the closet Surrealist in him.

For Claude Chabrol,a cinéaste who has made over 50 films,this film must be like one of his loving children.However,his admirers might view it in a different light as it might appear as a minor work for them but many serious viewers would nevertheless feel that there are some nice things to observe in this film.Au coeur du mensonge is a film about people who are grappling with truths and lies in their lives.This film is more of a character study even though it is true that there are two crimes depicted in the film.These vile acts are merely a pretext for small town people to talk of pretentiousness and infidelity.Au coeur du mensonge is also a story about two artists;one of them is a fake and other one is not so sure of his inherent abilities.There is also a woman in their midst who is torn between these two men.The message of this film is simple:To understand a lie,one has to go to its heart.When we watch Sandrine Bonnaire and Jacques Gamblin, we realize that the truth is not so complicated as it is always visible on surface level.

French movies are used to investigating human thoughts, behaviors. Chabrol makes it perfectly. As you might know, he is a typical French director, sometimes boring but specially relevant and with accurate analysis in this film. The feeling of jealousy and suspicion is perfectly depicted, Jacques Gamblin as a tortured painter is, as always, amazing and touching. The well known humorist for his Euro Trash show, Antoine De Caunes, is scheming and surprisingly good enough. It's true that Sandrine Bonnaire and Valeria Tedeschi are kind of insipid and correspond to the cold French woman stereotype I hate. Anyway, the film is perfectly directed and gives us some clues about the birth of jealousy.

Hi :) I've just seen 5x2 and I was stricken by the main actress's voice and was so sure that I had seen this actress before. I'm french and live in Australia for many years now. Here we have SBS (special Broadcasting Service) A TV station broadcasting many different countries movies) All I could remember from this movie was that voice...Then... this was of a police woman. It gave me a very strange feeling as if something was wrong, but I watched the movie and to be honest remembered little about it either good or bad beside my earlier comment. I would like to thank IMDb for the power of their database as in desperation I input "Valeria Bruni Policiere" and I came to this movie which I'm pretty sure is the right one. Please if you were put off by Valeria then, do not miss 5x2 on this account. So was the movie so forgettable or my memory failing me, I'll let you be the judge of this. Unlike the first comment chosen to describe it I can't remember being bored but,yes, I had to get use to that voice!