Feux Rouges (2003)
(Red Lights)
Country: FR
Technical: col 106m
Director: Cédric Kahn
Cast: Jean Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet, Vincent Deniard
Synopsis:
An insurance worker and his corporate lawyer wife drive south one Friday night of a holiday weekend to collect their children from a 'colonie de vacances'. At the same time he embarks on an odyssey of drinking bouts which seems to herald a crisis in their relationship and which imperils both himself and his wife.
Review:
For half its length this Simenon adaptation comes across as one of those personal relationship dramas that the French do so well; then it turns into the low-key thriller they do equally impressively. The director's clinical style is present in the deliberate pacing, in the minutes-long scene involving a series of phone calls the husband makes from an obliging cafe, and in the sober exchanges that take place in the hospital at the end. The whole is a triumph of concentration and continuity of tone, with actors and director taking equal credit, along with the atmospheric accompaniment of Debussy's Nuages.
(Red Lights)
Country: FR
Technical: col 106m
Director: Cédric Kahn
Cast: Jean Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet, Vincent Deniard
Synopsis:
An insurance worker and his corporate lawyer wife drive south one Friday night of a holiday weekend to collect their children from a 'colonie de vacances'. At the same time he embarks on an odyssey of drinking bouts which seems to herald a crisis in their relationship and which imperils both himself and his wife.
Review:
For half its length this Simenon adaptation comes across as one of those personal relationship dramas that the French do so well; then it turns into the low-key thriller they do equally impressively. The director's clinical style is present in the deliberate pacing, in the minutes-long scene involving a series of phone calls the husband makes from an obliging cafe, and in the sober exchanges that take place in the hospital at the end. The whole is a triumph of concentration and continuity of tone, with actors and director taking equal credit, along with the atmospheric accompaniment of Debussy's Nuages.
(Red Lights)
Country: FR
Technical: col 106m
Director: Cédric Kahn
Cast: Jean Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet, Vincent Deniard
Synopsis:
An insurance worker and his corporate lawyer wife drive south one Friday night of a holiday weekend to collect their children from a 'colonie de vacances'. At the same time he embarks on an odyssey of drinking bouts which seems to herald a crisis in their relationship and which imperils both himself and his wife.
Review:
For half its length this Simenon adaptation comes across as one of those personal relationship dramas that the French do so well; then it turns into the low-key thriller they do equally impressively. The director's clinical style is present in the deliberate pacing, in the minutes-long scene involving a series of phone calls the husband makes from an obliging cafe, and in the sober exchanges that take place in the hospital at the end. The whole is a triumph of concentration and continuity of tone, with actors and director taking equal credit, along with the atmospheric accompaniment of Debussy's Nuages.