Trompe l'oeil

Behind the opening titles we see the Arnolfini couple by van Eyck looking out at us, he a dry businessman while she is sweeter and heavily pregnant. In the mirror behind them we see four people, the two Arnolfinis from behind and beyond them two other people looking out at us. A game of light and perspective, of mystery and illusion, of appearance and reality, of symbols and split personalities, which will continue until the end credits.

We meet a contemporary couple in Belgium, he a somewhat insensitive businessman and she a pregnant picture restorer from a humble background. Her life is not going well and her widowed mother is no help (we are given hints of fixation on the father and of a primal scene). In fact, to the mystification of her husband and to her own increasing dismay, she is going to pieces: her only road to salvation will be to explain, and so exorcise, at least some of the demons that are assailing her.

Trompe-l'oeil :(French for '"deceive the eye"') is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions.

It's the kind of movie which is easy to admire but much harder to like ;in a nutshell,it's an intellectual movie,which Max Von Sydow's presence reinforces . The pictures are sumptuous and will remind you of Dutch paintings but the story often deludes the viewer.Its meaning may be different ,according to your own perception.

A woman is pregnant and feels insecure and restless;more,she's experimenting a bout of amnesia : she did something in the recent past and it might be something bad,something best left unsaid ; in a mysterious house ,opposite hers,a sinister-looking bearded man with a glove spies on her ,and nobody but her sees him ;she receives threatening anonymous letters;snatches of the past emerge now and then: did she steal a painting from a gallery? Does this menacing unknown man want to recover the item?

Its stiffling atmosphere recalls Roman Polanski ,but the story is difficult to pinpoint : a psychological drama depicting the fears of a pregnant woman?a thriller ? Fantasy and horror , with a stunning ending which will leave you dumbfounded ?Most likely reflections on illusion ?

In a word, complex.