Comédie de l’innocence (2001) - film review

On his ninth birthday, Camille casually tells his mother, Arianne, that she is not his real mother and that he desperately wants to go home, to his real home.  Initially amused by her son’s whimsy, Arianne allows her son to take her to his “true home”, only to find that the owner, a young violinist named Isabella, is away from home.  Soon after, Arianne receives a fax from Isabella inviting her to meet her.  When they finally get to meet, Camille instantly recognises Isabella as his real mother.  Isabella tells Arianne that two years ago she lost her own son, Paul, in a tragic accident, and she is certain that Camille is her own child.  Perplexed but worried that she might lose Camille to a stranger, Arianne invites Isabella to stay with them in her home.  She soon regrets it...

Comédie de l’innocence is a comparatively banal film from Chilian born director Raoul Ruiz, a man who has already demonstrated an unusual artistic flair and unique cinematographic style in such films as Le Temps retrouvé (1999) and Généalogies d’un crime (1997).  Comédie de l’innocence is essentially just a simple tale about childhood make-believe, viewed from the perspective of a mother who is incapable of seeing through her son’s fabrication and ends up nearly losing her mind.

The scenario is simple but it has great potential.  With the talent that Ruiz had at his disposal (including the magnificent trio of Isabelle Huppert, Charles Berling and Jeanne Balibar) this could and should have been an excellent piece of French cinema.   Unfortunately, the film falls way off the mark and is largely a disappointment.  Ruiz’s preoccupation with symbolism and double meanings, the heavily laboured cinematography, and the lack of realistic dramatic developments, give the film an irritatingly artificial and insubstantial feel.  Huppert and Balibar are on fine form and it is perhaps their contribution which makes the film watchable at all.  Unfortunately, the quality of their input is marred by comparatively weak performances in their co-stars (particularly the stilted child actors) and a generally mediocre script which lacks credibility and depth.

Perhaps what is most disappointing is the way in which the mood of supernatural mystery which pervades in the first two-thirds of the film is rationally and suddenly resolved in the last third.  Until that point, the film is quite compelling; afterwards, it quickly becomes tedious whilst its artificiality and lack of depth is cruelly exposed.

© James Travers 2002

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