L'homme qui ment (1968)
(The Man Who Lies)
Country: FR/CZ
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Zuzana Kocúriková, Sylvie Turbová, Sylvie Bréal
Synopsis:
A man returns to the village of the man he betrayed during the Resistance, and insinuates himself into the household of the man's widow, sister and maid, telling all manner of tales in order to hide an ultimately unrevealed truth.
Review:
Shot in Czechoslovakia with a largely Czech cast, Robbe-Grillet's meditation on the endlessly revisionary nature of storytelling makes use of some excellent German uniforms and equipment, a rather dilapidated hacienda-type house which seems to have all its furniture in one room, and three Slav beauties with pronounced eye makeup. Trintignant holds it all together amusingly enough, the editing is crisp but the sound design is at times so disjunctive it feels like a Godard film. The director permits himself one or two brief sapphic interludes and a sadistic execution fantasy, but with little discernible relevance to the main themes of invention, betrayal and reincarnation.
(The Man Who Lies)
Country: FR/CZ
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Zuzana Kocúriková, Sylvie Turbová, Sylvie Bréal
Synopsis:
A man returns to the village of the man he betrayed during the Resistance, and insinuates himself into the household of the man's widow, sister and maid, telling all manner of tales in order to hide an ultimately unrevealed truth.
Review:
Shot in Czechoslovakia with a largely Czech cast, Robbe-Grillet's meditation on the endlessly revisionary nature of storytelling makes use of some excellent German uniforms and equipment, a rather dilapidated hacienda-type house which seems to have all its furniture in one room, and three Slav beauties with pronounced eye makeup. Trintignant holds it all together amusingly enough, the editing is crisp but the sound design is at times so disjunctive it feels like a Godard film. The director permits himself one or two brief sapphic interludes and a sadistic execution fantasy, but with little discernible relevance to the main themes of invention, betrayal and reincarnation.
(The Man Who Lies)
Country: FR/CZ
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Zuzana Kocúriková, Sylvie Turbová, Sylvie Bréal
Synopsis:
A man returns to the village of the man he betrayed during the Resistance, and insinuates himself into the household of the man's widow, sister and maid, telling all manner of tales in order to hide an ultimately unrevealed truth.
Review:
Shot in Czechoslovakia with a largely Czech cast, Robbe-Grillet's meditation on the endlessly revisionary nature of storytelling makes use of some excellent German uniforms and equipment, a rather dilapidated hacienda-type house which seems to have all its furniture in one room, and three Slav beauties with pronounced eye makeup. Trintignant holds it all together amusingly enough, the editing is crisp but the sound design is at times so disjunctive it feels like a Godard film. The director permits himself one or two brief sapphic interludes and a sadistic execution fantasy, but with little discernible relevance to the main themes of invention, betrayal and reincarnation.