The third feature by Lionel Baier is an intellectual satire on the profession of film critic through the entertaining adventures of an aimless young man. François moves with his respectable girlfriend to Vallée de Joux, where she teaches at a secondary school. He finds a job as film critic with the local paper, where he thinks he can raise the level of reporting by writing film reviews with a high level of analysis. In reality, he copies them from a highbrow Paris magazine and is guilty of plagiarism. Then he meets Rosa, a celebrated film reviewer with a respected newspaper who is out to get the newcomer. An erotic game starts in which Rosa is the manipulative spider spinning a merciless web for him.
Baier, who says that this film is his most personal, resorts to film noir, but gives his own turn to this game of desire and deception. Inspired by a book by the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton about an art critic annex murderer, he is primarily interested in the harsh, insensitive sides of desire, which are expressed in the film in sharp contrasts between city and countryside, truth and lies, lust and love. In the end, he has the young man travel to Paris in order to meet as apotheosis Bulle Ogier, the queen of French cinema.
Film details
- Country of production
- Switzerland
- Year
- 2008
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2009
- Length
- 89'
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
