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Film: The Serpent
Release date: 29th September 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 119 mins
Director: Eric Barbier
Starring: Yvan Attal, Clovis Cornillac, Olga Kurylenko, Pierre Richard , Simon Abkarian
Genre: Thriller
Studio: In2Film
Format: DVD
Country: France
In the mould of Tell No One, and more recently Anything for Her, The Serpent is a tense French thriller based on the novel Plender by Get Carter scribe Ted Lewis. The film follows an ordinary individual thrust into extraordinary circumstances in a brutal tale of honour, revenge and personal courage.
The film begins with Vincent (Yvan Attal) going through a difficult divorce and a custody battle for the right to see his children. At work, he is met by a last minute replacement for a lingerie shoot by a stunningly beautiful, but emotionally fragile girl named Sofia (Olga Kurylenko). The two connect, but the following day Vincent is accused of rape. He meets Sophia again, although a terrifying accident complicates Vincent’s position further.
He then meets Joseph Plender, an old classmate from school. Plender plays the affectionate fool at first, but it soon becomes clear he is not all he seems. Haunted by events from his past, Plender is seeking vengeance on those who wronged him or his now-deceased mother. This includes Vincent, who unwittingly subjected Plender to a horrendous ordeal when a childhood prank went wrong. Plender, using Sofia to seduce his targets, is blackmailing and systematically destroying them; that is, until Vincent fights back.
On the run from the law, and desperate to protect his family, Vincent’s only hope is to confront Plender with his own twisted mind games…
Part of a wave of modern French thrillers, The Serpent is a tense, psychological tale where Barbier has brilliantly transferred Ted Lewis’ British story to a French setting. The confident direction superbly captures the cold, stark environments for maximum visual impact and atmosphere.
Although unconventional, the music by Renaud Barbier perfectly compliments the dark subject matter, heightening the tension in the story by using sparse, piano-driven melodies, and incorporating unusual sounds to create an unsettling feel. For example, one sound appeared to resemble shattering glass, which reflected Vincent’s world breaking apart around him.
The performances are excellent, supported by a strong script. Clovis Cornillac is a terrifying screen presence. Imposing and sinister, he turns Plender into a brutally efficient psychopath, but still allows for moments of sympathy and pity for the torment his character has suffered. Barbier’s direction adds to the portrayal, allowing us to see his eyes at certain emotive moments, while at others lighting him from above so his face and eyes are shadowed, to intimidating effect.
As with Francois Cluzet in Tell No One, Yvan Attal plays the honest everyman brilliantly, and is the film’s greatest feature. His character’s growing desperation and resolve to fight back are translated through a powerful performance, while the reality of his emotional journey and his conviction mean the film’s brief moment of fantastical action does not upset its tone, and remains grounded in a believable reality. Some of the best scenes in the film, however, are when Attal shares the screen with veteran actor Pierre Richard, who plays one of Plender’s other victims, while Simon Abkarian also provides strong support as Vincent’s lawyer.
Olga Kurylenko, known to most audiences for her role in the James Bond film Quantum Of Solace, is magnificent in bringing emotional depth and fragility to her character, despite the limited screen time. Her character’s past and personality could have been elaborated on to great interest, but this may have distracted from the central storyline. Nonetheless, she is a wonderful presence, and her performance, like Attal’s, allows for the action to retain a sense of reality that another performer may not have transferred.
The Special Features that accompany the DVD include a trailer and a half-hour ‘making of’ documentary. The latter is of only passing interest, as most of the running time is made up of clips from the film. Far better are three short interviews, with Kurylenko and director Barbier giving some interesting insights into the filming process and their intentions.
While the film does not reach the cinematic heights of Tell No One, The Serpent is nonetheless a compelling watch. An excellent cast, director and script unite to create a suspenseful psychological thriller that maintains it tension and emotion throughout. CD
Kristin Scott Thomas brings another extraordinary performance to the screen, with a role that has already earned her a nomination for France’s highest accolade for an actress – Best Actress at the Cesar Awards 2010. This is Kristin’s first French-speaking lead role since I Loved You So Long, which garnered high critical praise and earned over one million pounds at the UK box office.
Suzanne (Scott Thomas) is married to Samuel (Yvan Attal) with two children. When she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist, it brings her into contact with a builder called Ivan (Sergi Lopez), an odd job man who has been to prison. The mutual attraction is sudden and violent. As Suzanne spirals out of control, she must decide between her family or living this all-engulfing passion to the full.
A stunning portrait of the destructive consequences that love can have, at the centre of which is a scintillating performance from Kristin Scott Thomas..
Film: Leaving
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Catherine Corsini
Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López, Yvan Attal, Bernard Blancan, Aladin Reibel
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: France
DVD Special Features:
•
Exclusive Cinemoi interviews with the cast and crew
•
UK Theatrical trailer
Film: Rapt
Release date: 13th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Lucas Belvaux
Starring: Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, André Marcon, Françoise Fabian, Alex Descas
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD
Country: France/Belgium
Reflecting a growing disaffection with the economic ruling classes, Belgian director Lucas Belvaux’s 2009 kidnapping drama is both thought-provoking and entertaining.
Parisian businessman Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal) has the kind of life most people can only dream of. He is hugely wealthy, enjoys powerful connections, and has a wonderful home, complete with a loving, beautiful wife, Francoise (Anne Consigny), and two doting daughters, but all of this doesn’t seem to be enough for him. As we soon discover, he has made a habit of being unfaithful to his wife, and has a serious gambling problem that is spiralling out of control.
When he is kidnapped, and one of his fingers is cut off to be sent with a ransom demand, we feel more sympathy for his wife and daughters, if not his coldly indifferent mother, than we do for him. It becomes clear, as his gambling and womanising ways are exposed by a baying media, that his personal wealth is not as large as previously thought, but his business colleagues agree to advance the money to his wife for his ransom payment, perhaps more out of expediency and the desire to put an end to the embarrassing media revelations than any genuine concern for their director’s well-being.
As the media revelations continue to mount, and the police increase pressure on Francoise and the board of Stanislas’s company to do things their way, the kidnappers begin to lose patience, but are in no hurry to forfeit their chance at getting their hands on the kind of wealth that Stanislas allowed to slip through his fingers…
Given the nature of the story, and Stanislas’s flawed personality, it would have been easy for Belvaux to slip into a heavy-handed social commentary about the dispossessed trying to even the score against a rich and unscrupulous tycoon, so it is to his credit that Rapt functions primarily as a taut human drama that is as subtle as it is stylish. Stanislas may be an arrogant scion of wealth and a cheat, but he is only human, and in the hands of his kidnappers his perceived power, in a cruel twist, only makes him more vulnerable.
What also gives Rapt an edge over most other films of this type is the way Belvaux focuses on the fear and confusion experienced by Francoise and her two daughters. The daughters, in particular, are forced to confront the fact that Stanislas may not be the perfect man they thought he was, and when they discover that their mother was at least partially aware of his philandering ways, they feel that she is complicit in having created the illusion of a perfect life that now lies shattered around them.
Where the film does take on a more pointed political edge is in its treatment of the business and political figures that Stanislas works with. Belvaux takes care not to overdo this side of the film, but he does not shy away from presenting the majority of these characters in an unflattering light. Most of them are only concerned with what they see as a public relations problem and the ongoing profitability of the company, while Stanislas’s second in command, Andre Peyrac (Andre Marcon), seems to quietly relish the opportunity to take control.
As the tension mounts, and Stanislas unravels under the pressure, it begins to look as though certain parties would prefer him to disappear for good, and there is even a suggestion that he may have organised the kidnapping himself in order to get the company to pay off his debts.
Aided by editing and cinematography that add to the slowly building tension, and sense of emotional unease, Belvaux has delivered an absorbing and, at times, almost austere dramatic thriller that avoids mainstream gimmicks. If there were a Hollywood remake, which is apparently on the cards, Rapt could well end up looking like a cross between a big budget advert and a pop video, with lots of flashy editing, saturated colours, pointless effects, fanciful camera work and an obtrusive soundtrack, but Belvaux knows when to hold back and maintain a sense of distance.
An experienced actor himself, Belvaux has also coaxed excellent performances from his cast. Yvan Attal handles Stanislas’s transition from an assured man of power to a cowering physical and mental wreck with consummate skill, but it is perhaps in the latter part of the film - spoiler alert - when he impresses most. Once he has been released from the clutches of his kidnappers, Stanislas is arguably at his least likeable. Reunited with his wife and daughters, he is more interested in seeing his dog than confronting the conflicted emotions of his family, and responds with petulance and remarkable selfishness to their feelings of betrayal.
Anne Consigny is even more impressive as Francoise, and is nothing less than mesmerising as a woman who struggles to keep her dignity and sanity intact while trying to support her children in the face of agonising humiliation and fear for her husband’s life. In many respects, Francoise is the heart of the film: a woman torn between the old order and the uncertainty of the new; between her priviledged, if fatally compromised life and the chance at another, less submissive existence.
In some respects, Rapt is a conventional kidnapping drama, but Belvaux invests it with a heady sense of weight and an awareness of context that transforms it into a film of unusual power and intelligence. JG
