Um Casal Admirável

Lucas Belvaux approached this film with a lot of ideas. This is the second of the trilogy that was recently released. Being curious as to what it was about, I ventured to see this installment and the next one, but will not see the first one.

At the beginning of the story, we see Alain, a successful lawyer, who goes to pieces when his doctor tells him, a small operation must be performed. When he asks if it is serious, the doctor reassures him, it's routine. Well, this news makes Alain reconsider "what if" this procedure is cancer.

Alain goes to extremes to keep it from his wife and family, thus triggering the mechanism for this comedy of errors he embarks. Some of it is mildly funny, most is tedious. The only redeeming feature in the film is that Ornella Muti plays Cecile, Alain's suffering wife.

It would have been much simple for Alain to confide in Cecile at the expense of not having the comedy thus created by his misjudgment.

Lucas Belvaux's trilogy of films is meant to be taken as one multi-faceted unit, and indeed it is best viewed as such. The first (as I saw them), "On the Run," was a `thriller' with the main character, a convicted terrorist (Belvaux himself), escaped to settle scores and look up an old flame (Catherine Frot) who has settled down with a family. There we got our first glimpses of a relationship between the escapee and the drug-addicted wife (Dominique Blanc) of a down on his luck cop (Gilbert Melki), and the first hints of the events in this second film, a romantic comedy, "An Amazing Couple" ("Un couple épatant"). The comedy is about a fearfully hypochondriac husband (François Morel) and his loving wife (Ornella Muti (DeLaurentiis' "Flash Gordon"!)) who is driven to suspicion. The trilogy ties up with a character study (or `melodrama'), "After the Life," about Melki's cop and Blanc's drug-addled wife. The romantic comedy and `melodrama' work fine as stand alones, and are even enriched by the angles explored and explained by the other films. Only the thriller is really hobbled by it's involvement with the other interwoven stories. All three should be seen together, though. Or, as a friend recommended, maybe I should just watch Kieslowski's `Three Colors' trilogy instead…?

"On the Run (Cavale)" is the first third of an engrossing experiment in story telling that crosses "Rashomon" with a television miniseries to show us an ensemble of intersecting characters over a couple of days to gradually reveal the complicated truth about each.

Writer/director Lucas Belvaux uses a clever technique to communicate just how differently the characters perceive the same situations-- they are literally in different movies and, a la "Rules of the Game," everyone has their reasons.

"On the Run"is a tense, fast-paced escaped con on-the-run Raoul Walsh-feeling film, with the auteur himself playing a Humphrey Bogart-type who can be cruel or kind; "An Amazing Couple (Un couple épatant)" is an Ernest Lubitch-inspired laugh-out-loud comedy of mistaken communication; and "After the Life (Après la vie)" is a Sidney Lumet-feeling gritty, conflicted cop melodrama with seamy and tender moments.

"Time Code" experimented turning the two-dimensions of film into three with multiple digital video screens. This trilogy is more effective in showing us what happens as characters leave the frame. Belvaux goes beyond the techniques used in the cancelled TV series "Boomtown" or the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu in "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams" with their stream-of-consciousness flashbacks character by character.

I don't see how I can deal with each film separately. Theoretically, one can see the three movies alone or independently out of order, but that would be like watching one episode of a series like "The Wire" or "The Sopranos" and wondering what the big deal is. Only a handful of patrons in my theater joined me in a one-day triple-feature; I guess the others have a better memory than I do that they could see each film on separate days, though a marathon does inevitably lead to some mind-wandering that could miss important clues and revelations so this is ideal for a triple-packed DVD.

On DVD we'll be able to replay the excellent acting to see if in fact the actors do shade their performances differently when particular scenes are enacted from different characters' viewpoints -- are these takes from the same staging or not? How is each subtly different that we get a different impression each time? Or are we bringing our increasing knowledge (and constantly changing sympathies) about each character to our impressions of the repeating scenes?

One reason this conceit works is because of the unifying theme of obsession - each character is so completely single-minded in their focus on one issue that they are blind to what else is happening even as they evolve to find catharsis. One is literally a heroin addict, but each has their psychological addiction (revenge, co-dependence, hypochondria, jealousy).

The slow revelation technique also works because of the parallel theme of aging and acceptance of the consequences of their actions, as some can face how they have changed and some can't change. You need to see all three films to learn about each character's past and conclusion, as secondary characters in one film are thrust to the fore in another in explaining a key piece of motivation.

The only place they really interchange is in an ironically, meaningless political debate at the public high school they each have some tie to.

I'm not sure how "Two" could be the 1st instalment of a trilogy, but none-the-less I watched it after (my reviewed) "On the Run" (or 'One').

Hypochondriac compulsives always have the potential to make good comedy subjects and (can't remember the character's name) a possible cancer scare causes him to update his will and testament constantly on his portable voice recorder. Hiding his paranoia from his wife naturally causes erratic behaviour, and thinking a mistress being involved she employs a police friend to investigate.

It is weaker than the terrific thriller of On The Run, but this often farcical comedy of modern errors is fast-moving, tipping its hat occasionally to Jacques Tati and has frenetic and furtive people dashing about in cars. It all gets a little messy and complex and after a while the connection with On the Run blurs with this one.

Some scenes have been edited into 'Two' - unfortunately, they don't make any revelations but, neither do they detract. It's actually a good way to re-use locations (the alpine lodge, for example), cars even and many props and of course, actors. This allows cross-continuity but might all seem a just a bit too clever.

I'm looking forward to the 3rd part (Afterlife) to see how this aspect gets taken further and hopefully, to see another terrific film in its own right.

A few minutes into the movie «Un couple épatant», after you recover from the startling first impression and acknowledge a categorical change of genre in the second installment of Lucas Belvaux's trilogy, the film flows at a rapid pace, as the story advances and unravels the chain of misunderstandings that lead the titular couple to suspect each other of adultery. Belvaux goes from the violent drama of "«Cavale» to the comedy of errors with precise humor and feline grace, and those who have seen the first installment will know that there is a dramatic background, represented by the characters of that other story. However, even without knowing their personal histories in depth (the man hiding in a country house, the arrested woman, the drug addict and her policeman husband), all fit like clockwork in this story: lawyer Alain (Morel), an obsessive hypochondriac, dramatizes a minor surgery and hides it from his wife Cécile (Muti). He begins to dictate his last will to a tape recorder (a testament that is modified every time his affection for his inheritors changes, according to the plot twists) and entangles his loyal secretary Claire (Mairesse) and his medical friend (Mazzinghi) in the farce. But Cécile smells something fishy and does not sit on her hands: she hires the services of policeman Pascal (Melki). Things get more and more complicated with every gesture, word or action, which have an opposite charge to the real one, according to each spouse's perception. Belvaux's narrative skill is in top form and leaves us curious about the closing of the trilogy. After this change of register, from a stark drama to a paranoid comedy, my curiosity about the outcome was awakened.