Um Casal Admirável

This is mostly a well plotted and acted lighthearted farce about marriage, trust and fidelity, with serious issues not far below the surface.

Seeing this airy fare right after the darkness of 'On the Run' (part 1 of the Trilogy) gives an almost Zen like insight into the two sides of life – light and dark, silly and tragic, and how those two dance and interweave.

Yes, a few of the comic twists are a bit forced, but many more are clever and really amusing, and all the characters are simultaneously lovable and infuriating.

But most amazing is the chill one feels when the overlaps with 'On the Run' become apparent. Even more than "On the Run", "An Amazing Couple" is a far better film for being part of the bigger whole.

Interestingly the top professional critics were split on this film in particular, and on 'The Trilogy' as a whole, calling it everything from 'a masterpiece' to 'a self involved misfire' .

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…?

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.

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.

"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.