Caméléone (1996) - film review

One night, Léa, a former prostitute, shoots dead a man who has been stalking her.  The killing is witnessed by two newspaper delivery men, Luc and Jean, who offer Léa protection.  Léa currently lives with an ageing American artist, Francis, not realising that her former lover, a police chief named Moskowitz, is determined to win her back at any cost...

The policier genre had been out of fashion for the best part of a decade in France before filmmakers rediscovered its appeal in the mid-1990s.  With a few promising short films under his belt, Benoît Cohen chose the policier as the subject of his first film, and succeeds in giving a well-known genre a refreshing perspective.  Whilst the characters in his film are clearly inspired by the familiar stereotypes, they are well drawn and, thanks to some creditable acting, worryingly believable.

Chiara Mastroianni’s performance in this film is one of her best too date, conveying both feminine vulnerability and a deadly animalistic drive to come out on top in an aggressive male-dominated world.  It is largely her film, in much the same way that Luc Besson’s Nikita belonged to Anne Parillaud – which is not to dismiss the contributions of her co-stars.  Jackie Berroyer is excellent as the villainous cop Moskowitz, appearing menacing yet touchingly sympathetic in most of his scenes with Mastroianni.   Antoine Chappey likewise makes an appealing “good guy”, even if his character is less well developed and less interesting.

In common with most thrillers of the 1980s, the thing which most mars Caméléone is its plot.  Overly complicated and with a surfeit of background detail, the story takes a long time to attain some form of coherence, and a few of the twists and turns are truly baffling.  Despite this, the film works well as a thriller – the mood is relentlessly noirish throughout, threatening and suspenseful, with some great moments of tension (and a surprising lack of gore).  Cohen’s love of film noir and the thriller genre in general is apparent from the very first sequence (which turns out to be the last chapter in the story, so watch it closely).   Whilst it may not be a perfect example of the genre, Caméléone is a film that works well, both as a traditional film noir and as a dark psychological drama, and even offers a few unexpected comic touches along the way.

© James Travers 2005

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