The DVD jacket says "Brilliant", "A stunning thriller" and "The most gripping film of the year", and most of the reviews I've seen on this site seem to back those claims up. The thing is, I simply can't understand why.
I'm very much into French cinema and believe I can recognize a good film when I see one, but this one really puzzles me. Or it's rather the brilliant reviews that puzzle me, because my interest at some point during the film waned, and eventually turned into boredom, to the extent that I didn't really care anymore who actually sent those tapes. All the same then that the director apparently had decided to leave us in the dark about that! I'm a great fan of Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, and they're the main reason I picked this film up. And there's not much really that I can fault about their performance in this film.
But those long scenes of surveillance video tape, where basically nothing is happening - apart from the odd passing car - were not easy to watch for me. I'm not saying that a thriller has to be action-packed from beginning to end. Far from it. After all, it's the "suspense" element of a psychological thriller that makes it what it is. But I failed to witness much suspense in this film.
I'm very much into French cinema and believe I can recognize a good film when I see one, but this one really puzzles me. Or it's rather the brilliant reviews that puzzle me, because my interest at some point during the film waned, and eventually turned into boredom, to the extent that I didn't really care anymore who actually sent those tapes. All the same then that the director apparently had decided to leave us in the dark about that! I'm a great fan of Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, and they're the main reason I picked this film up. And there's not much really that I can fault about their performance in this film.
But those long scenes of surveillance video tape, where basically nothing is happening - apart from the odd passing car - were not easy to watch for me. I'm not saying that a thriller has to be action-packed from beginning to end. Far from it. After all, it's the "suspense" element of a psychological thriller that makes it what it is. But I failed to witness much suspense in this film.