La femme du Vème

If you enjoy a movie with loads of atmosphere that leads you deeper and deeper into a complex mystery, and then refuses to give easy answers, then you will love "The Woman in the Fifth" - I know I do.

An American writer, Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke), arrives in Paris to try to meet with his daughter. His ex-wife immediately calls the police and we realise that there has been some ugly history between them.

Broke, Tom is given a room in a seedy hostel in exchange for taking a job as a nightwatchman in the basement of a strange building. At a literary gathering he meets Margit Kadar (Kristen Scott Thomas). Margit lives in the fifth arrondissement - the woman in the fifth - and they have an affair. His life starts to take unexpected turns. At the hotel, he also has an affair with a young Polish waitress, and a confrontation with the aggressive man in the next room. All the while, trying various ways to see his daughter.

By the end of the film there has been a murder, a kidnapping, and revelations about Margit Kadar that reveal that all is not right with Tom Ricks. Not much is explained at the end - the last scene leaves us wondering.

Movies that blur the line between what is real and what is being imagined have been around for a while now. Back in the days of Film Noir it usually turned out that it was all just a dream - a not too satisfying resolution that quickly became trite. However, over the last couple of decades, movies that blur the line have become much trickier.

The process in more recent times may have started with movies that are not exactly ghost stories, but feature people who don't know they are dead. A forerunner was "Carnival of Souls" in 1962, but Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" wasn't the only one to see dead people, they popped up in "Jacob's Ladder", "The Others", "Passengers", and "November" to name a few.

Then there are the split personalities - the cinematic interpretation of schizophrenia. David Lynch's films, "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr." come to mind. Then there is "Fever", "A Beautiful Mind", and the recent "I, Anna" as well as "Trance", which have explored this phenomenon. "The Woman in the Fifth" belongs with this group.

Although that tricky shift between the real and the imaginary has probably been seen a few times too often now, "the Woman in the Fifth" does it well. This intriguing film has an affecting central story, a fascinating location and compelling performances all round.

Watch this with a group and have a great discussion on questions like: What happened in that movie? What was that about? How much of the content was symbolic and how much of it was actually concrete?

Or watch it alone and become miserably confused.

"The Woman in the Fifth" throws us into the middle of the story. Seemingly a perfect way to start, a back-story is implied begging to be told, and future events destined to unfold to eventually come together in an interesting climax and dénouement. But the back-story never was revealed and the plot elements are indiscernible to the average eye.

Tom (Ethan Hawke) is an American writer moving to Paris. His first novel was a moderate success and he is most likely suffering from various creative blocks, probably not helped by the fact that his ex-wife has a restraining order against him, prohibiting him from seeing his daughter.

At this point, we are driven into a world of crime – not surprising for a thriller, but we don't know what crimes yet. Broke and alone, Tom makes a deal with a shady "businessman", develops an affair with a mysterious worldly woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) and then develops an affair with a sweetly mysterious waitress (Joanna Kulig).

For the few crimes that we do know were committed, it's awfully hard to understand why or by whom. The reality of the film and the imagination (or fantasy) element of the film are most likely impossible to separate. Almost all viewers have come up with different explanations, if they came up with any.

It can be interesting watching a jarring film and deduce whatever explanation you like. It can also be disappointing if you don't come up with any explanation that you like. I'm afraid I fall into the latter group.

That being said, it's nice seeing Ethan Hawke in a lead role in an indie. And speaking French no less (not perfectly, but it fits the role)! The imagery and cinematography chosen for this film were interesting and walked the thin line between thriller and horror, helped along with a slightly off-beat score. "The Woman in the Fifth" is off- beat, if it's anything at all.

I really like Ethan Hawke as an actor. I don't even know why I do. He wasn't really on my radar until Sinister, and I've worked my way back from there. But as much as I enjoy him acting (if not his films themselves aside from Sinister and Daybreakers), even that can't make me say this was a good film, and as much as I enjoy abstraction and expression, there are some things I'm left not understanding, but the film is unfortunately too boring and underwhelming to have warranted a thousand think pieces by film essayists, so I'm left scrunching my face somewhat.

I enjoyed Ethan, at least, but I'd never recommend this or watch this again. It's not fascinatingly vague and open to interpretation; it's just vague. It's clearly a movie pretending to be something it's not. I was sitting here thinking a fascinating story would have been about his same situation (sans the family I couldn't care less about) but focusing on his "job" in the locked room. There were many mysteries and thrills they could have made out of it instead of the pretentious, half-baked, poorly paced, dull "story" we actually got. (Also, the characterization of the immigrant characters is suspect.)

The American professor of literature and novelist Tom Hicks (Ethan Hawke) travels to Paris to see his beloved daughter Chloé (Julie Papillon) that lives with her mother Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot). However, Nathalie uses the restraining order to call the police and avoid letting Tom to meet Chloé.

Tom flees from the police and takes a bus but he is tired and sleeps. When he awakes in a poor neighborhood, he finds that his luggage and money were robbed. He goes to a bar and the Polish waitress Ania (Joanna Kulig) brings a coffee for him. He asks for a room and explains that he had been robbed and she asks him to talk with the owner Sezer (Samir Guesmi) that allows him to stay in a very low budget room and pay him later. Then Sezer offers a job of night watchman in a suspect building.

One day, Tom goes to a bookstore and is invited to a party with writers where he meets Margit Kadar (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is a translator and widow of a Hungarian writer. She gives her address and telephone to Tom. Soon Tom has a love affair with Margit at her apartment and with Ania on the roof of the bar. But Tom is also obsessed by his daughter, snooping around Chloé during the days. When his next door neighbor at the hotel that is blackmailing Tom is found dead, his only alibi is Margit. But when the police officers go to her place, they discover that she had committed suicide many years ago.

"La femme du Vème" is one of those movies like "Triangle" where there is no explanation for bizarre and surrealistic situations. I am not sure whether the director Pawel Pawlikowski had this intention or not, but forget any explanation about the plot and simply enjoy (or not) the movie.

David Lynch is the master of this style while Claude Chabrol was the French master of thrillers with open endings to make the viewer think and discuss possibilities. But this is the practically unknown Pawel Pawlikowski and I was disappointed with the lack of conclusion of the good plot. But as an unconditional fan of Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke, I do not regret this strange experience. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Estranha Obsessão" ("Weird Obsession")