Pakt des Schweigens

A little surprised about some of the negative comments this little gem has received. Still we all have different tastes and expectations.

Personally I found this a delightful film to participate in - yes nearly everything is 'telegraphed' and the mid-story turn points and ending are highly predictable.

It's a story simply told, well acted and directed. I would even go as far to say that you could watch this film in its native language with little or no knowledge of French and without using subtitles* and understand it all.

* The English translation is particularly good and uses common expression rather than the more formal in keeping with the original dialogue - thus it tends to be more European English than American English.

Like a lot of European films it is filmed as a snapshot of real life - at no time do you have to suspend your belief. The story is simply an amalgam of real documented events.

If you like films crafted as Art then this will probably appeal to you. Switch of the phone, put the kids to bed, open a bottle of red wine and chill-out.

The soundtrack is particularly good and cues the emotions and actions perfectly.

Watch the film to its real end. - Under the end credits.

I'm not sure why the Mill Creek Entertainment DVD company decided that this obscurity was worth a re-release on DVD, nor do I know why they put it in a 4 movie collection labelled "Hollywood Hits" - it's a French movie! All that aside, I thought that the movie was a pretty big disappointment. I guess the acting is okay, and the foreign settings give it a novel backdrop. Also, it does make you curious as to how it will end. But the movie is very confusing at times, playing out like it started at chapter two or three instead of the very beginning. As for the ending, I have to admit that I found it very unsatisfying - it's confusing as well. It doesn't help things much that the movie often has a flat and cheap look you would associate with a modestly budgeted European television show, so it's no surprise that the credits reveal that one of the participating companies was TF1. Though TF1 is a major French television network, this production is definitely minor in league.

A slow mystery thriller, seriously underestimated. Comments here about plot holes and unresolved issues rather show that some viewers missed clues and did not catch onto what was going on. Very pretty girl playing the twin(s). Ah, what lips. Not by any means a masterpiece, but anyway a great little thriller. At first the movie seemed to be something as rare as a genuine catholic drama, but the various themes were not developed in a religious fashion. Still the same theme appears in dozens of configurations, as if the author was wrestling with the same moral dilemma in ever character and plot structure: helpfulness in it's various guises, sometimes as sacrifice, sometimes as but the false shell of selfishness. This occurs not only in the main characters, but in virtually every minor act too, from journalists over fellow inmates to high priests and nuns. The main characters development is as I mentioned certainly not catholic, rather they discover to abandon the vain failure of self-sacrifice and Samaritan ambitions, and that to do real good you have to accept your own desires.

Films about identical twins are always interesting, especially when they are so gorgeous your two eyes are out on stalks looking both ways at once. Elodie Bouchez is my idea of the kind of twin I would like to have all round me, what a gal! That is the kind of double-vision we would all like to have all the time! In the story, the twins have had a hard time of it, one locked up in prison for a murder ostensibly committed at the age of 14, and the other locked up in a hideously fundamentalist Carmelite nunnery (don't you just hate all that Catholic masochism stuff?) Carmen Maura plays a mother superior who is in love with the twin who is the nun, and she is very convincing. Into this mix steps a priest named Father Joachim, played by Gerard Depardieu. He is extraordinarily good at this, despite the fact that we know in real life he is one of France's leading bon viveurs. Strangely, in this role we do not really expect him to pick up a wine bottle and drink it all in one go, or wipe his lips after having had some snails. Instead, we really believe that he is that ascetic renegade priest 'with a past'. When he gets sacked by the horrible hypocritical Monseigneur, we want to cheer because he is free of the crap and now has time to take more interest in - which twin is it? Well, there's the problem. Even he loses track of which twin it is. Each one feels the other's pain, and there is a strong paranormal element with the story, and the twins are in constant telepathic contact. This is a very intriguing and gripping tale, well made, and with the performances of Elodie Bouchez being so spell-binding (her allure is indefinable, which is what all allure should be, but it has a spiritual dimension) that this is one of those really good gripping French movies that we wish they made so many more of.

I've seen this movie and I enjoyed the whole idea. I agree with most comments regarding the way this movie was directed, a bit loosely I must add, but with great and trust able acting by Depardieu and Elodie Bouchez (Elodie has been in my all time french actresses list for a long time now).

A bit of a complaint, is the locations. In any moments you see REAL Brazilian locations in this movie, although in its plot most action takes place in some states here in Brazil. Some actors speak with Portuguese (from Portugal) accent, which sounds weird for a Brazilian like me...it would be something like, in the English language for example, a British actor acting like a guy from Kansas in the USA. No cars, no houses, even the beaches are quite different from ours. So that's the complaint...the credibility is lost regarding the place chosen to shoot the film.

Anyway you can watch this movie and enjoy two good actors and a nice chemistry between them.

PS. Some guy wrote that the country the reporter was sent was Peru. You got it wrong. It's BRAZIL.