Au coeur du mensonge

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.

This is a typical Claude Chabrol study of the intricacies of human deception, betrayal, failures of self and of others. It weaves a wide web of intrigue, and who is the murderer is a question which almost drowns in the mire of human weaknesses which Chabrol's relentless scalpel peels away, layer by layer, in his surgical manner. The film, set on the coast of Britanny, is brilliantly directed, as usual. And the actors in this ensemble film are all superb, also as usual. Probably the outstanding performance is by Jacques Gamblin as the limping artist suffering from a prolonged case of painter's block. His wife is sturdy Sandrine Bonnaire, a district nurse. Her performance is excellent, as usual, but the makeup person overdid her eyebrows far too much! Ever since his serious accident some years before, he has experienced a collapse of morale, and she keeps him going and also brings home the bacon. Meanwhile, she is flirty with an odious, arrogant man who is a visitor to their town, with whom she then commences an affair. Where would a Chabrol film be without an affair? Who killed the young girl? Who is sleeping with whom? Who has the hard heart of a killer and who merely seems to? Will the Gamblin and Bonnaire marriage crack up, or will it survive? Chabrol has his usual fun mystifying us, perplexing us, teasing us, depressing us, and putting us in our place. His main purpose often seems to be to prove to us, with almost mathematical precision, that we are all in the grip of an incomprehensible Fate, that there is murder around every corner or behind every bush, that no alliance or marriage is safe, that betrayal lurks in every heart, that we all have terrible secrets (and if we don't, what's wrong with us?) which will devour us from within, and that every situation is so complex we need to be able to solve partial differential equations for non-linearities even to begin to figure out anything at all. And even then we will still be lost and wandering in a maze of extra dimensions! The amazing Jacques Gamblin of this film appears in Chabrol's last film before his death in 2010, INSPECTOR BELLAMY (2009, see my review), where he plays three characters at once. But Gamblin's performance here is even better than those.

Claude Chabrol had directed about 50 movies since 1957. Sometimes, he's very good, but when he's bad, he's really boring. This movie is boring, despite the good efforts of asking the spectators who had killing the little girl and the writer. It's too long, too low key. But the biggest problem of the movie is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. I never saw such a weak actress. She don't have any credibility in the role of the police inspector. She's inexpressive and had an horrible voice. She can't articulate and most of the time, we don't understand or hear what's she's saying! Sandrine Bonnaire seems to be anywhere except in her role, but Jacques Gamblin is good. Too bad for Chabrol's fans!

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.

In this and some other of Claude Chabrol's movies, it is as though he sets out to defy himself and his audience to feel any emotion. The pace is even; characters rarely raise their voices or lose their tempers; there is no on-screen violence; and the sex is minimal and decorous. The colour is carefully orchestrated, with cool blue predominating; and though the film is set by the sea, this is not the warm, seductive Mediterranean, but the cold, off-putting Atlantic; when the weather deteriorates, there are no violent storms, simply thick fog.

Though superficially a drama about the rape and murder of a young girl, the real subject of the film is deceit and lying. From the trompe l'oeil paintings of the main suspect René Sterne (Jacques Gamblin), through marriage infidelity, to the smug hypocrisy of TV celebrity G-R Desmot (Antoine de Caunes), all is a sham. Nor does Chabrol shy away from reminding us that the film medium itself is based on illusion - a character reassures another "that's the sort of thing you only see in movies".

But for all the movie's careful construction, and despite my trying hard to suspend disbelief, some elements of the film remained deeply unconvincing and even ludicrous. In particular, I found it impossible to accept Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as a police chief with an ultra-mild demeanour and a penchant for pink knitwear. Also, the film ended so abruptly that I for one missed any final point made by Chabrol. Nevertheless, there may be viewers more discerning than I who will find more value in this movie.