Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

robert-temple-1 This is a really terrible film, with one redeeming feature: it has fascinating cinematography by Pierre-William Glenn. I have been trying to figure out 'how he did it'. For some years it has been a tiresome cliché that gloomy crime thrillers must be shot through a blue filter, and the Danes have certainly overdone that! Sometimes I think if I see any more blue-tinted scenes I shall scream. In this film, something bizarre was done by the cinematographer. Warm colours such as reds and browns glow supernaturally with an eerie radiance, while light is generally suppressed. I would like to take Monsieur Glenn aside, hold his hand, and say to him: 'Please tell me how you feel. And while you are at it, tell me what your secret is. I mean your cinematographic secret, not all those others.' But having praised the magnificent cinematography, I must now hasten to condemn the film itself. It is gloomy, despondent, depressing, and a total 'downer' from first to last. It meanders around in a depressive staggering fashion, it has contrived card inserts of the date and time of the day which are absolutely not needed, and it is a work of vanity and arrogance in my opinion. Why did the talented Josiane Balasko agree to do this? Obviously it was a meaty role for her, and she was nominated for a César (French Oscar) which may have been because everybody loves her, but as for this particular performance, although she did it very well indeed, it was a non-role in many respects and hardly worthy of her. Her character Michèle Varin reappears, once again played by her, in a subsequent collaboration between her and this director, Guillaume Nicloux, THE KEY (LA CLEF, 2007), which is rather better than this one. But surely they could both find something a bit more cheerful to be doing in their spare time than depressing everyone so very much. It is Nicloux who writes these things, and perhaps someone needs to put him on Prozac. This film has some really harrowing and revolting nightmare dream sequences, such as Balasko dreaming that she is being buried alive. They should have buried this film instead.

writers_reign Anyone seeing this film and unaware of Balasko's 50 plus previous films, 18 of which she wrote including the six she wrote and directed would probably find it hard to believe that she is best known as a comedienne. Helmer Guillaume Nicloux appears to have a penchant for persuading ex-members of l'equipe Splendid to appear in polars having started in his last film, Un Affaire Privee, with Thierry Lhermitte (who turns up here in a neat cameo) and now with Balasko. Nicloux doesn't like to make it easy for the audience which means the mentally sub-teens who feel naked without a family-size tub of popcorn would do well to avoid this one. Although Balasko's Michele Varin is described as a detective it is the audience who need to do the lion's share of detecting, for one thing Balasko is never really shown in anything resembling a police station, she SAYS she's a flic and occasionally she flashes the tin and is seen in the odd conversation with uniformed cops but that's about it as far as confirmation goes. She is acutely depressed since the death of a young child and Nicloux playfully or even wilfully allows us to speculate Pirandello-like just what is real and what is not; the thinking-man's polar already. Thierry Lhermitte even reprises his private heat role from Une Affaire Privee allowing further speculation that his case in THAT movie and the suicide/murder that kicks of THIS one are tenuously connected and Nicloux clouds the issue further in one of those end captions to the effect that the case was never solved. Ultimately the crime or lack of same is of far less moment than what is going on in Balasko's psyche. It's a stunning performance and puts her up there with France's finest actresses and there's no greater praise than that.

abisio `Cette-femme la ` is a surprising thriller. Different to anything you see lately. The movie plays with the spectator, instead of letting be just a witness; and in the game is comes the over the top suspense. A forty plus years old police officer, is in a highly depressive state due to his son dead years ago. We never know exactly how, but it seems guilt is all over her.In one anniversary, Michele (the outstanding Josianne Balasko) becomes more and more obsessed with suicide. Everything around her seems to suggest it is time to end her life. A mysterious crime in the forest, turn up a series of coincidences and deaths, that we are never sure if they are real or in the woman's mind.The movie becomes darker every second, but it is better not explain more, otherwise it will ruin the perfectly crafted suspense. Just a comment; as in another outstanding thriller (`Skin Deep' from the Peruvian director Lombardi), the police plot is secondary to the real story in the movie.

Mozjoukine Our mature cop lady heroine is fighting her own demons which get mixed in with her messy case. This policier has good production values, seriousness of purpose, a strong central performance by Balasco (who even does nude scenes which really is game) and ingenious plot twists. It should be better.The lack of conviction in a lot of contemporary French product is hard to diagnose. There's certainly no lack of talent.Someone explain why the poster for this one is more involving than the film itself.