Silencio pactado

I'm not sure why the Mill Creek Entertainment company decided to re release this horrible movie but it's not even worth the price of a ticket. Everything's foreign and not much action at all. All talk and hardly no action. Tonight it will face The Quiet. I'm don't even like the main actors as they cannot bring good enough performances to the screen.

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.

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.

In "Le Pacte du silence", Depardieu is a priest and a physician who is sent to tend to a beautiful young nun (Bouchez) who is suffering from abdominal pain. When he finds no cause for the pain and learns the nun's history and order are cloaked in secrecy he becomes suspicious and commits himself to unraveling the mystery behind the nun and her affliction. What ensues is a convoluted mess of a story which involves murder, voodoo, sympathetic physical manifestations, tragedy, and love. Though the film manages to sort itself out in the end and both Depardieu and Bouchez register solid performances, the story is obviously concocted, as difficult to follow as it is to swallow, and not as suspenseful as the musical score would have us believe. A so-so watch now on broadcast which will work best for Depardieu fans into mysteries involving the paranormal. (B-)

It is hard to believe how such good premises can lead to a poor film. The idea of the film is very good, although not completely original. A priest and doctor treats a nun, who is sick, and we can see soon that her sickness has para-normal causes. In fact, she is twin in fate (and health maybe) with her real twin sister who serves term for a childhood murder. Without entering further details, the confusion and inter-melding in the lives of the two could be the start of a very strong psychological and/or horror movie. Reality and dream, hidden relations between the twins, secrets of the past poisoning the present, a priest fighting to keep his faith - all these are good themes getting a poor treatment. The film also stars the mega-star of the French cinema Gerard Depardieu, as well as a very gifted actress Élodie Bouchez in the double role of the twins. The problem is that the film is that badly directed, that the viewer has to fight all the time with the confusion of the action, instead of being able to focus on the psychological development. In this case the European style of filming in realistic shots makes a de-service to the movie. The Hollywood re-make if it will come one day may be much better. 5/10 on my personal scale.