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A
PRIVATE AFFAIR
6/10
Une Affaire Privee : France 2002 : Guillaume Nicloux : 101 mins
Une
Affaire Privee may as well
be called L’Adieu Longue, so proudly does it brandish its allusions
to The Long Goodbye.
Once again, we have a hang-dog, anachronistically (even laughably) old-school
private-eye who gets much more than he bargains for when he takes on a
missing-persons case – the characters even at one point fuzzily debate
the legendary ‘coke-bottle’ scene from the Altman classic. In the Elliott
Gould role, it’s a pleasure to find Thierry Lhermitte breaking free from
the shackles of Francis Veber
farces to become Francois Maneri, a chain-smoking, womanising, fortyish
divorcee, hired to investigate the disappearance of 22-year-old Parisian
student Rachel. As Maneri questions Rachel’s relatives and friends – including
seductive best-pal Clarisse (Marion Cotillard) – what gradually spirals
out is a double (or even triple?) life of Laura Palmer-style complexity
and darkness.
But
as the clues, leads and connections pile up, it eventually becomes clear
that writer-director Nicloux has higher ambitions than simply crafting
yet another sexy, twisty crime thriller: this isn’t a film about detection,
but deconstruction. In the final act, he stages an audacious coup which
effectively throws the whole investigation back in Maneri’s face – and
ours. Nicloux chides him (and us) for thinking that 21st century
lives are tidy things that can be decoded, unravelled and understood by
conventional forms of narrative closure.
And it’s a kind of punishment, as well, so frustratingly are our expectations
stymied. Because, up to the last five minutes, the film has been an absorbing
experience – skilfully shot and scored, with Eric Demarsan’s jazzy stylings,
initially almost deafening, gradually fading through the course of the
film until they’re almost minimalist by the time the elegant ‘picture
credits’ roll. Viewers can tick some major names on the French cinema
scene whom Nicloux has slyly deployed in cameos, including a bemused Jeanne
Balibar, an iron-pumping Samuel Le Bihan, dog-loving Philippe Nahon and
well-scrubbed Bruno Todeschini. Balibar and Todeschini recently co-starred
in Va Savoir!, and while Une Affaire Privee is, thankfully,
much shorter than Rivette’s arthouse marathon, it’s ultimately no less
baffling – and, on reflection, no less pleased with itself, especially
its hazy cop-out of an ending.
August 21st, 2002
(seen 18th, Filmhouse Edinburgh – Edinburgh
Film Festival)
For all the
reviews from the 2002 Edinburgh Film Festival
click here.
by Neil
Young
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