Comédie de l'innocence (2000)
Country: FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Raoul Ruiz
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jeanne Balibar, Charles Berling, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
Synopsis:
On his ninth birthday a child decides that his mother is another woman entirely, to whose house he takes his perplexed natural mother. Is it an insidious plot to steal her son, or just a bad dream?
Review:
Containing, as in Ruiz's earlier films, surreal elements such as the maid's bizarre kitchen activities and the contradictory video evidence at the end, the film is stylistically removed from the thriller conventions with which it flirts; the music track also, though unsettling in that sense, is pushed so much to the fore over dialogue that it encourages the viewer to be critical. The central theme of the demonic, manipulative child, recalling infants in The Turn of the Screw or The Others, is balanced by the at times infantile behaviour of the adult characters: Isabella's connivance at the central imposture, Ariane and Serge's protectiveness of their treasured toys. Reflexive, rather dry entertainment for connoisseurs of French cinema's more insubstantial byroads.
Country: FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Raoul Ruiz
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jeanne Balibar, Charles Berling, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
Synopsis:
On his ninth birthday a child decides that his mother is another woman entirely, to whose house he takes his perplexed natural mother. Is it an insidious plot to steal her son, or just a bad dream?
Review:
Containing, as in Ruiz's earlier films, surreal elements such as the maid's bizarre kitchen activities and the contradictory video evidence at the end, the film is stylistically removed from the thriller conventions with which it flirts; the music track also, though unsettling in that sense, is pushed so much to the fore over dialogue that it encourages the viewer to be critical. The central theme of the demonic, manipulative child, recalling infants in The Turn of the Screw or The Others, is balanced by the at times infantile behaviour of the adult characters: Isabella's connivance at the central imposture, Ariane and Serge's protectiveness of their treasured toys. Reflexive, rather dry entertainment for connoisseurs of French cinema's more insubstantial byroads.
Country: FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Raoul Ruiz
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jeanne Balibar, Charles Berling, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
Synopsis:
On his ninth birthday a child decides that his mother is another woman entirely, to whose house he takes his perplexed natural mother. Is it an insidious plot to steal her son, or just a bad dream?
Review:
Containing, as in Ruiz's earlier films, surreal elements such as the maid's bizarre kitchen activities and the contradictory video evidence at the end, the film is stylistically removed from the thriller conventions with which it flirts; the music track also, though unsettling in that sense, is pushed so much to the fore over dialogue that it encourages the viewer to be critical. The central theme of the demonic, manipulative child, recalling infants in The Turn of the Screw or The Others, is balanced by the at times infantile behaviour of the adult characters: Isabella's connivance at the central imposture, Ariane and Serge's protectiveness of their treasured toys. Reflexive, rather dry entertainment for connoisseurs of French cinema's more insubstantial byroads.