Even the more inventive thrillers will fall back on convention, as this new French entry does in its opening minutes. Here we find an idyllic outdoor dinner, in which the camera circles guests to create a tone so dreamlike that, alas, we're ready for a doze. At times like these, no one seems to have issues -- it's as if weekends never end and retirement comes by 35. The tranquility here feels exploitative, like a premise hardly worth filming, until it's shattered by storytellers with better plans ahead.
Not that the general premise breaks new grounds. Cliches be damned, Alexandre's (François Cluzet) love for Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) really does seem endless. Having been inseparable since adolescence, the couple radiates the world around them, whether lulling with friends or taking a late-night skinny dip. Cue the upheaval when Margot leaves the water and screams out from beyond sight, right before Alexandre's clubbed in the face and we follow him to a blackout. The film takes us ahead eight years, with Alexandre lost as his soul mate is presumably dead. Funeral scenes crosscut with flashbacks of their wedding make a stale taste return for the viewer. Yet tension soon rises to make this as smart and crisp as the best of the recent paranoid thrillers -- i.e.,
Michael Clayton and
In the Valley of Elah.
Attentive as a pediatrician but emotionally numb, Alexandre revives after receiving some mysterious emails. Like answers to his prayers, they lead him to think that Margot is alive, and that deception was was used to pin a serial killer for her death. From here, the framework of the case loosens until Alexandre cannot trust anyone, as he's caught in a conspiracy and chased as if by a Hitchcock McGuffin. Here writer/director Guillaume Canet (whose script is based on the Harlan Coben thriller) finds a consistency on tone and method to deliver it. As brisk as things become, clarity wins out, as the hand-held camerawork
Bourne for many a chase sequence has no place here. For full-blooded anxiety, thugs surface out of nowhere, one of them a birdlike woman who throws chops and masters pressure points of sheer agony. But devotion leaves Alexandre dauntless, even if saved by a thug whom Alexandre bailed out of a possible child abuse accusation.
Far from a clever payoff, the final revelation is calculated and serves the story arch more than its own purpose. Again we're reminded of Hitchcock's MacGuffins, those plot-igniting devices that would lie limp when revealed (like those inane plutonium bottles in
Notorious). To realize humanity behind the suspense, the makers of thrillers need to master the finest forms of trickery. Whenever a new development arises, and viewers await further tension, the film cannot forget its characters' fears and desires, or else we glide into superficial melodrama. Canet sees
Tell No One as Alexandre's mission, through which he progresses to reclaim his life purpose. Even if he a great enlightment is never to be his, the triumph of his will makes his quest worthwhile.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 10:15 PM
In a 1968 interview, Jimmy Stewart told Roger Ebert about an elderly man who wandered out of the woods during an on-location shoot in Canada. "Which one of you is Stewart?" the man said, and Jimmy kindly responded. Far from starstruck, the man explained to Jimmy how he'd never forget one scene of his, in which Stewart says a bit of poetry to woman in an adjacent room. The scene was vague to Stewart at the time, though it lived on vibrantly for the aged moviegoer.
The memory stayed with Stewart as did the moment in
Come Live with Me, with Hedy Lamarr, for the man in the woods. Often one grand image or moment allows us to commit to memory a work that would fade away otherwise.
Part of Cassell Illustrated's "Great Moments" series,
Defining Moments in Movies, edited by Chris Fujiwara, collects such immortal moments, as interpreted by a gang of fine film writers.
Moments takes us decade by decade to profile scenes often emblematic to their respective works. By relating the bit to the whole, this book creates something we could call movie metonymy, a micro-scale approach to film criticism.
Much of this hefty text of what seems like countless entries includes the undisputed greatest moments, from the first hand-cranked, silent images to the latest adored by critics. Expect the obvious, like Charlton Heston's parting of the Red Sea, though the entries on such standbys provide surprising, well-written responses. (Don't be fooled by the coffee-table design -- never again will you judge a slick book by its cover.) Widely known moments in avant garde history are also to be found, such as the slit eye in Dali and Bunuel's
Un chien andalou, while many lesser-knowns appear later. From a variety of contributors, the brief entries capture the moments and their significance in a snapshot, making the text into an immediate critical reader, friendly to buffs and the intellectually curious alike.
With tons of films covered -- we're talking months of browsing time here -- even the seasoned moviegoer will discover new films/directors, while entire movies are refreshed from memory. By also including "Key Events" and "People" in movie history,
Moments turns into a nice little primer on film history.
Collected by decade, however, the entries lack thematic coherence and continuity. Zhang Yimou's entry shares a page with Billy Crystal in the Hitchcock spoof
Throw Mama from the Train, wrongfully reflecting the logic of late-night channel surfing. And occasionally, an entry fully misses the mark: the shock of a tiger jumping from the jungle (now a cliche) hardly defines
Apocalypse Now, Coppola's Herzogian quest into the unknown. Yet such misfires are few in a text full of riches. Get shuffling, and upgrade that Netflix account.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 8:40 PM
One image in this film is purely apocalyptic: a computer reproduction shows specs swirling away from a mass of white, which director Herzog tells us in voiceover is a polar cap losing iceberg-sized pieces into a warming sea. The creeping destruction is subtle, even if our species grants it a fast approach. It is one key discovery made at the tip of the world, which Herzog investigates in full in this new, extravagant documentary.
This filmmaker can't resist extremes, both geological and psychological. His trademark fictional films look to obsessives who want to conquer the unknown, which often results in suffering and madness. Herzog's documentaries seek out real-life examples of the same, some who survive, while others, like Timothy Treadwell in
Grizzly Man, are consumed by their obsession.
Encounters doesn't zero in on one obsessive, but portrays the colorful eccentrics drawn to live and work in Antarctica. Much of the film feels like an essay, as it investigates local wildlife -- one lone penguin is programmed to journey to his peril -- and the natural wonders under the tundra waters, filmed after strings of dynamite crack a hole through deep ice. Yet this purportedly nature documentary muses on everything it encounters, and hints toward all the other wonders of the world beyond our sights.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 6:35 PM 
