The same century and the same country that produced the delightful comedies of Moliere also gave birth to the tedious dramas of Racine, the avatar of neoclassicism. If this glib assessment of the revered French master raises your hackles, then Saint Omer is the movie for you.
We all know what over-acting is. Examples are all around us. Is it possible to under-act? This film answers that question with a resounding Oui! Same goes for editing, cinematography, and most of the other Oscar categories that give us the opportunity to scoot to the kitchen for another beer. Sometimes less is less.
A woman accused of murdering her child delivers testimony in an expressionless monotone while a writer, also expressionless, watches from the second row. A story that in any other film could easily elicit empathy flattens all emotion, as if the crime in question were littering, not infanticide.
Later, we get to hear the same testimony as the writer reclines in her hotel room and plays back the audio. We can imagine how the writer feels, but it's completely up to us, as she displays no more emotion than she did in the courtroom.
In a conversation with her agent, the writer mentions Medea, the Greek lady who killed her kids and gave their wandering father a flaming bathrobe. For three centuries now French dramatists have delighted in draining all the drama from Greek classics, reducing them to dry intellectual puzzles not worth solving.
Sometimes they apply this technique to contemporary events, asking us to take a fresh look at issues like colonialism, racism and sexism. This kind of thing can work, when executed outside of France. Witness the adaptation of Ulysses by the Coen brothers, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"
In France, apparently, only comedies are allowed to use modern editing techniques, a sense of pacing, interesting camera angles, and facial expressions.
C'est dommage.
