Au coeur du mensonge

Although Claude Chabrol has worked predominantly in the crime genre, and adapted much mystery fiction, very few of his films are straight whodunits. Crimes may be the central feature of these films, or the catalyst at least, and investigations may shape these narratives and bring them to their conclusion, if not resolution. But Chabrol is usually more interested in focusing on point-of-view, of the killer, the victims, the suspects, the community, than in any who's-the-killer games. So 'Au coeur du mensonge' belongs to a relatively marginalised (and recent) position in Chabrol's filmography; its most famous predecessors are 'Cop au vin' and 'Inspecteur Lavardin' (although there are important echoes of earlier Chabrol classics like 'Que le bete meure' and 'Le Boucher').

However, just because we don't know who committed the two murders until the end, this doesn't mean Chabrol is only interested in artifical games. The limits of the whodunit paradoxically give Chabrol the freedom from delineating the psychology of the criminal, to something much more interesting to him; in other words, the unknowability of other people, especially those we love, live with and think we know best.

Chabrol's films are so self-contained and remote, that it's rare to find him concentrating on 'topical' issues. Here the subject is the all-too-familiar paedophile rape and murder of a young girl in the woods. She was last seen at a lesson with her art teacher, Rene, and suspicion immediately falls on him, in one of those oppressive small towns where the Internet will never outpace malicious gossip. If we didn't know whodunits, we might think so too - he is lame, shifty looking, whiny, and a failed artist experiencing mental breakdown who thinks his masseuse wife, Vivianne, is having an affair with a slick media personality, G.R.

There are other suspects: G.R. himself, his criminal go-between, and Rene's friend, Regis, even, as the coroner cheerfully suggests, a woman with strong hands and gloves - an exact description of Vivianne earlier. But it is Rene everyone suspects, especially the new Chief Inspector, Lesage, whose personal stake in the case (she has a daughter of the same age as the dead girl) makes her determined to bring him to justice.

'Mensonge' is a psychological study in the guise of a mystery thriller. We are asked to follow Rene's reactions to the murder, social ostracism, artistic failure etc., and yet we're not told whether he's the murderer or not, or any of the other characters, which would surely be a crucial element in anyone's psychology! so these two impulses - towards psychological truth and towards a mystery story which necessarily precludes the audience having any access to the character's psychology, puts it with the same level of knowledge of characters as the other characters, making for an effectively tense film, which, beyond its mystery trappings, asks whether we can ever know anyone, when trust, or self-confidence, or faith in 'reality' is gone.

The film links the idea of lies (characters concealing truths, making realities out of lies), with art (painting - Jacques revels in panoramas and trompes d'oeil; the second murder is 'composed' like a painting). Throughout, various media for the diffusion of truth - painting, TV, books, recitals - as well as the police investigation, with its need for artistic resolution, are highlighted, interrogated and undermined (even a last minute confession is suspect, and the denouement, appropriately, takes place in a deep mist). Chabrol's blithely elliptical narrative style further compounds our uncertainty. As with every Chabrol, the surface every character sees, or creates, is as treacherous as a trompe d'oeil. As the child-murder in the forest, echoing 'Diary of a Chambermaid', suggests, Chabrol is letting out the closet Surrealist in him.

French movies are used to investigating human thoughts, behaviors. Chabrol makes it perfectly. As you might know, he is a typical French director, sometimes boring but specially relevant and with accurate analysis in this film. The feeling of jealousy and suspicion is perfectly depicted, Jacques Gamblin as a tortured painter is, as always, amazing and touching. The well known humorist for his Euro Trash show, Antoine De Caunes, is scheming and surprisingly good enough. It's true that Sandrine Bonnaire and Valeria Tedeschi are kind of insipid and correspond to the cold French woman stereotype I hate. Anyway, the film is perfectly directed and gives us some clues about the birth of jealousy.

For Claude Chabrol,a cinéaste who has made over 50 films,this film must be like one of his loving children.However,his admirers might view it in a different light as it might appear as a minor work for them but many serious viewers would nevertheless feel that there are some nice things to observe in this film.Au coeur du mensonge is a film about people who are grappling with truths and lies in their lives.This film is more of a character study even though it is true that there are two crimes depicted in the film.These vile acts are merely a pretext for small town people to talk of pretentiousness and infidelity.Au coeur du mensonge is also a story about two artists;one of them is a fake and other one is not so sure of his inherent abilities.There is also a woman in their midst who is torn between these two men.The message of this film is simple:To understand a lie,one has to go to its heart.When we watch Sandrine Bonnaire and Jacques Gamblin, we realize that the truth is not so complicated as it is always visible on surface level.

In "Au coeur du mensonge" (literal translation "At the heart of the lie", English titel "The color of lies") a 10 year old child is killed at her way home from drawing lessons. Because the painter that gives these lessons (René Sterne played by Jacques Gamblin) is the last who saw the child alive he is the main suspect of not only inspector Frédérique Lesage (played by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) but also of the rest of the village.

"Au coeur du mensonge" fits in the tradition of films in which people are condemned by a crowd in stead of by a judge. An old example of such a film is "Fury" (1936, Fritz Lang) but a more recent example (even younger than "Au coeur du mensonge" itself) is "Jagten" (2012, Thomas Vinterberg).

Initially I found the similarities with "Jagten" very strong, and it was only on closer inspection that I discovered some not unimportant differences.

In "Jagten" there is no real crime, only an accusation. The filmviewer knows this but the people in the village of course not. In "Au coeur du mensonge" on the other hand there is a real crime but no specific accusation. René Sterne is suspect because he is the last one who has seen the victim alive.

In "Jagten" the crowd turns violent on the accused. In "Au coeur du mensonge" the village "only" secludes the suspect.

In "Jagten" the conviction if the crowd is independent of the criminal authorities (just like in "Fury"). In "Au coeur du mensonge" the two run far more parallel because the new inspector Lesage is very eager to solve the case quickly in order to promote her own career.

From the first difference it follows that in "Jagten" it is clear from the very beginning that the accused is innocent while in "Au coeur du mensonge" the innocence of the suspect is in doubt until the very end, also for the viewer. After all Claude Chabrol was not called the French Hitchcock for nothing.

In "Jagten" Mads Mikkelsen gives a brilliant performance, In "Au coeur du mensonge" the performance of Jacques Gamblin is not inferior. His character René is a man that has acquired scars in an earlier phase of life. He tried to find a quiet life at the coast of Brittany and now is unable to defend against unspoken suscipions.

By the way the coastal landscapes of Brittany with their occasional fog greatly enhances the mood of this film.

I never was a big fan from Claude Chabrol who said himself that for him movies have to be like stones. Chabrol is the master in so called psychological dramas and the problem with them is that the departing idea is interesting but that it never goes any further than an ordinary teleplay, and that's the same here. It's the story from some scandal in Bretagne. In a forest a child is found dead and as soon as the police arrives they accuse the man with whom the child was with the last time. The whole town is shocked and points a finger at an innocent man. The idea was inspired by Belgium's most famous crimestory, Marc Dutroux, a man (or monster?) who is accused for having kidnapped and murdered some children. A decade later the trial still hasn't started and the big question is of course : is he the one that has to behind bars? But good Chabrol doesn't even try to explain us such things, he just films everything in a cold docustyle and it's so slow you tend to watch your clock till it will end...