Anna M.

Anna M (Isabelle Carré) is a poor and sick girl : she's lonely, depressive, she has no friends or sentimental life, she's got a boring job at the Fench National Library and she lives alone with her mother, who seems unable to fill the void of her life. So, she naturally tries to kill herself an evening, while taking the dog out. And when she wakes up at the hospital, she had to find a new meaning to her life, and it will take the shape of the doctor who cured her (Gilbert Melki), for whom she'll develop a crazy love fixation : even if it seems obvious that he only fells indifference for his patient for whom he only have professional concerns, she'll convince herself that he shares with her an absolute love. The movie develops wit realism and intelligence this fixation, that slowly become a dangerous mental sickness, and fallows its progression steps by steps, with the seriousness of a psychological study.

To the crudity of this study, that sometimes really penetrates the intimacy of this troubled conscience, Michel Spinosa adds some horror/thriller's touch that wears a double face. Spinosa uses a fantastic tone and even some horror movies figures of style in order to describe the subjectivity of his character (nighmare sequences, deformed frame to underline the sickness of Anna, etc.), but he's also stage some horrific triller scenes, that lead to the most impressive and tense sequence of the movie, where the monstrous character is now in charge of children. The use of horror figures in a traditional dramatic movie is always interesting in the world of french "Cinema d'Auteur", even if it's more and more common (see the recent "Le dernier des fous", in which Laurent Achard imposed a fantastic tone to a classical family study, or "ILS", a french horror movie, supposedly based on real events). And it's nice to see that the mix is quite efficient and that, thanks to the the reflection of the psychological and the horror sides, you're able to clearly understand the madness of the main character.

This description of madness, full of tension, is certainly the great achievement of the movie, but if you're deep in it when you're watching it, it's strange to see how its effects quickly disappear after the screening. Even if I was completely emerged in the movie while watching it, I didn't kept a strong memory of the movie, and it didn't get much impact on me. I think it's partly due to the clinical and cold impression that crosses the all movie, and to the fact that you never really fell anything for the characters. Anna is more like a figure of study, an experimental subject for whom you don't really get any emotion nor compassion, but only understanding, than a really human being. And the Dr. Zanevsky doesn't really exist, except in Anna's mind. Melki's character is just plain and mediocre, and you're never really able to see it through the crazy eyes of his mad lover. That's also why, at the end, despite the original efforts of the movie, I still got the feeling to have watched another classical french little drama.

'Anna M.' is a stylish, chilling portrait of a woman's collapse into mental illness; yet it's only partially successful as a film, in spite of a great performance from Isabelle Carre in the lead role, excellent cinematography and an understated, effective score. This is partially because at times it threatens to descend into a straightforward psychopathic stalker movie, and however nicely this is worked out, it's a plot line made dull through over-use and the fact that the victim, by definition, cannot be held responsible by the viewer for their actions. In my opinion, most interesting films leave the audience to judge the character, which can't be done with this plot line. Cleverly, the film cleverly brings this sub-plot to a premature climax, which turns out to be just a local peak on the overall narrative arc; but that wider story, although more innately interesting, never quite lets us into its secret. The tale begins, after all, with a kind of suicide attempt; what led up to this is never explained, even though it's clearly the root cause of what happens after, as well. For me, 'Anna M.' falls in between a thriller and a character study, with some of the merits of both, but also not without the faults of each genre; a miss rather than a hit, though not without interest.

A shy, unhinged woman becomes obsessed with her doctor. Which turns psychotic when her abrasive advances towards him spiral out of control. Anna M is a good psychological drama, with a good turn from Isabelle Carré as Anna.

...then you have to back-up and start watching some Michael Haneke films. His work is brilliant, and makes Spinoza's film seem like a generic French thriller that pales in comparison.

This film requires an immense degree of suspended disbelief which makes it unwatchable in my opinion. Am I supposed to believe the events that transpire in the film? Seriously? This film is really far fetched and the lead actress' performance is grating because of its one-dimensiality. Her obsession is just too much. And it cannot carry the film. No one is that obsessed in this world (okay, almost no one), certainly not over a Doctor??? Come on. Get serious.

If they would have examined her relationship to her mother (like Haneke did in The Piano teacher) in a more thorough manner then it might have helped out in terms of the character development, but these characters just develop in such narrow terms.

I take French Cinema very seriously, but I must admit that this is just average fare. Mediocre at best.

Anna M. begins with the titular lead staying on after-hours in a large, expansive, highly decorated library complete with numerous tiers and various places of study for what-not; all the while deeply immersed in her work. She's laying studious claim to her studies so much so, that the entire building appears to just shut down around her; the general ground floor area long since evacuated as afternoon turns into evening which turns into night which causes the building's lights to go out and render the whole area a crepuscular dead zone of objects brought to life no longer by the rays of light which before, gave an odd bronze glow to surroundings. The young woman is still buried into her precise, meticulous, detailed studying, something which the film goes to some lengths to highlight as this calculated, careful and exact person is put across as such. The library is actually the zone in which she works, her skills or overly enthusiastic attitude to her work and the characteristics seemingly required for it coming to leave said place of business before going on to substantially contribute to the morphing of a number of lives outside of it, more often than not for the worse.

Isabelle Carré, here coming to eventually look a little like Julianne Moore with a head-cold as things deepen and worsen, plays Anna: a softly spoken but desperately troubled French woman; a loose canon of mental illness and ill-thought; flitting, desperately, from place to place and from unbalanced instance to instance – all the while destroying or self destroying. She lives at home with her mother and their pet dog, the lack of a father figure or some kind of male orientated presence at the home, if it's true, an element no doubt experts within particular fields would be able to highlight most certainly contributes to the sort of behaviour and attitudes, certainly more broadly linked to that of men, that she has. The mother appears somewhat tepid, even passive at being able to do anything about anything; on another occasion, Anna, in a clean and remorseless blow, comes into contact with the pet dog off in a mechanical and somewhat insensitive manner when her desire to rest takes precedence. Writer/director Michel Spinosa barely holds back, the set of characteristics and general frustration within our Anna certainly on show.

Something is definitely wrong with Anna, whose first act is to step out in front of a moving taxi in a bid for it to run her down upon leaving her place of work after the opening sequences. This brings her closer to a local doctor named André Zanevsky (Melki), the man whom treats her at the hospital after the failed suicide attempt, but whose very treating of her and presence will kick things off into territory just as harrowing. As an initial coming-together, Dr. Zanevsky must intimately feel and explore certain parts of the body that may have been damaged during the contact with the automobile and consequent fall; the man, perhaps the first to have spoken to Anna in months or even years, is immediately the object of her affection and it does not take long for the girl to be smitten. Throughout, the film delicately balances precisely where it is Anna lies in terms of her own mindset; the ambiguity as to whether she is genuinely insane by way of her talk of hallucinations and the apparent fabrications of memories involving other people goes hand in hand with this morbid level of intelligence she carries around with her, something which furthermore allows the film to present her as this conniving, devilishly clever stalker whose methods of thinking and ways of getting closer to her beau tempts us into thinking she's anything but a mindless, thoughtless idiot doing what she does.

The film is a fascinating, and unnaturally engaging piece in its own right; a game of cat and mouse between an already married man whose objectification within the mind of one, disturbed woman whom was the natural victim of procedure following on from her own ill-advised actions, is the core. The film's addressing of sexual frustration, and the systematic dismissing of it as a drive for its protagonist, lies within Anna's ability to flirt and successfully pull a metro worker for a one night stand which does not quench the need to continue to chase Zanevsky. An attractive enough girl, Anna's issues and the film's attitude in regards to wanting to explore something a little more than a bored young woman out to cause a nuisance for herself and others around her, is highlighted to be running deeper here.

The film appears to be one of which was constructed by a man with a grim view of women; not a sexist one, but a view of which is most probably scared or a little weary. Furthermore, Anna's ultimate happiness arriving in the form of what it is doesn't necessarily suggest a stance from a filmmaker highlighting that it is the only way women can be happy; more-over, there are numerous other women in the film whom aren't granted the solution Anna is and appear perfectly functional as is in their respective lives. It would be true to say that most of what unfolds in the film might unfold in mostly any order one would deem fit, it is the manner in which such a tale of such a woman and her antics are told in the escalating fashion which they are which keeps it perennially fascinating. Studious, rather agonising and nary afraid to take on a true-to-life mental illness in the harshest, and often bleakest, of forms as numerous people around that of the sufferer are affected for the worse, Anna M. is a stark and rather oddly fascinating little drama which takes a dart and hits the mark.