L'inconnu de Strasbourg

A woman and her lover are surprised by her husband. The husband is accidently killed and the lover flees, after making an appointment with the woman to meet at a restaurant on October 13th. The lover suffers an injury which produces amnesia. All he remembers is the rendezvous on the 13th.

Everyone else thinks that the man is dead. When he turns up, he is mistaken for someone else who has been missing for some time. He is eventually recognized by the woman, who has befriended the cop on the case, who is a suspense novelist in his spare time.

The mystery hinges on the real identity of various characters in the film, and what their real motivations are.

The film was exciting, well-acted, and had an extraordinary score. Although the movie is about coincidences and destiny, some of the coincidences strain belief, and some of the symbolism is heavy-handed. The gothic setting of Strasbourg adds to the atmosphere, as do the antique clocks that figure in the story.

The greatest weakness of the film is its unbelievable explanation, provided near the end of the film, that was supposed to explain all that had gone before. I found myself with questions that I could not answer, about why characters had said or done things earlier, given the newly-revealed state of affairs. I felt that there were holes in the plot. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the film and found it captivating, up until nearly the end.

How many times was amnesia used in thrillers?Here,Charles Berling's character is a cross between Michel Auclair's one in "pas de pitié pour les femmes"(1950) and Tom Berenger's one in "shattered" (1990)None of those two works were particularly memorable,but "shattered" provided its fair share of thrills(remember the scene in which Berenger finds back ..his head).

The French attempt is really pitiful.It would have taken writers of Boileau-Narcejac calibre to pull off such a far-fetched story :conspiracies,mystery characters,psychological tension necessitate a concrete script.Here there are enough plot holes to fill the Albert Hall,as the Beatles used to sing.Actors do not seem to believe in what they are playing.At least "shattered " ,if unlikely,followed a logical story.

And ,as far as amnesia is concerned,you will always be better off with Hitchcock's " spellbound",(1945)which remains an unsurpassed model of the genre.If you have not seen this masterpiece yet,please do it!