Un jeu brutal

The famous biologist Tessier stops work. He is going to bring up his daughter, Isabelle. She is handicapped and was admitted to a specialist hospital years before. She is wild and rebellious and refuses to accept the sudden appearance of an unknown, shy and taciturn father. The film tells us at the start that Tessier is a murderer and, in doing so, puts an end to all suspense. In the same period when he is systematically killing children, he starts on the Spartan upbringing of his daughter. In the meantime, Isabelle increasingly opens up to the world; both to her worried teacher Annie and her appealing and tyrannical father.The provocative Un jeu brutal looks at a rebellious kid growing up, in parallel with her father’s descent into hell. Helped by a rigorously stylised mise-en-scène, Brisseau made a film with an alarming and confusing mood, where seduction and fear mix. Methodically and ascetically, the film shows the various murders by Tessier and the paranoid relationships between the characters. The gripping Un jeu brutal is both physical and metaphysical, made with a great sense for the corporal and material. (Jacques Déniel)