QPORIT

Spectacularly beautiful Alpine vistas with brilliantly blinding white snow transform this film noir into a visually stylish film we might call a chilly film blanc.



Marc (Mathieu Amalric), a professor of literature and creative writing at The University of Lausanne, lectures his beautiful female students on feeling passion in literature and life. Many are provoked to try out what they learned on their teacher. But Marc is a very complicated man.




LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME, though nominally a "mystery" about the disappearance of a student (who we know from the pre-credit sequence has spent the night with Mark at his chalet and apparently died there), really becomes the study of Marc himself, his life story, his family story, and his personality.

The cinematography, starting lush and becoming more somber as the story itself does, is quite terrific, as is the music.

Note... I do have a petty quarrel with the English title: a "perfect crime" is one in which no-one who should get hurt gets hurt, and the perpetrator gets away with what they deserve to get away with. Neither of those conditions is true here.

While Amalric is not, physically, necessarily a babe-magnet, one can see how his carefully designed lectures may do the work for him. The story is surprising and all the acting is very fine, with a small but powerful appearance by Sara Forestier as a student with Marc as her target.



Sara is striking. A little research revealed that she is actually one of France's most important rising young actresses. In 2005, she was selected as one of Europe's "Shooting Stars" and won a Cesar (the big French Award) for Most Promising Young Actress for her role in GAMES OF LOVE AND CHANCE ("L'esquive", directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, who is currently in theaters with BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR)

Moreover, Sara plays the title role in SUZANNE (also here at Rendez-Vous), a role for which she is nominated (as Best Actress) for this year's Cesar Awards (presented on Feb 28). AND! she stars in a third film here at Rendez-Vous, LOVE BATTLES ( "Mes séances de lutte" directed by Jacques Doillon).



Mathieu Amalric has been in many films shown over the last few years in New York and is in another film in this year's Rendez-Vous: IF YOU DON'T, I WILL ("Arrête ou je continue" directed by Sophie Fillières). Mathieu is also up for a Best Actor Cesar this year, for his role in Roman Polansky's VENUS IN FUR.


LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME
"L'amour est un crime parfait"


DIRECTED BY Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu

WRITTEN BY
Philippe Djian -- the source novel 'Incendies' -
Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu -- screenplay

CAST
Mathieu Amalric - Marc
Karin Viard - Marianne (Marc's sister)

Maïwenn -  Anna
Sara Forestier - Annie
Denis Podalydès - Richard
Marion Duval - Barbara (the missing girl)

Damien Dorsaz - Le jeune inspecteur



MATHIEU AMALRIC ON AMAZON



 

Labels: FilmLinc, LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME, Mathieu Amalric, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, Sara Forestier, The Film Society of Lincoln Center