L’Ennemi naturel (2004) - film review

A young police officer, Nicolas Luhel, arrives in a remote Breton town to investigate the mysterious death of an adolescent.  The victim’s mother has no doubt who the killer is – her ex-husband, Serge Tanguy.  As Nicolas begins his investigation, it appears that everyone is against him, as if no-one wants to know how the teenager died.  On top of this, Nicholas has his own problems.  He misses the comfort of his wife and new-born child.  And then he begins to experience a strange, intimate fascination for Tanguy...

Pierre Erwan Guillaume made his directorial debut with this, one of the most original and intriguing French films of 2004.  Starting out as what looks like a thriller cut from the conventional policier mould, the film gradually morphs into something very different – a hauntingly poetic portrayal of a young man’s search for his own identity, disguised as a police investigation on the suitably austere coast of Brittany.

In contrast to the usual crime drama, where there is a well-honed plot which ends with the mystery tidily explained, this film has very little plot and no clear resolution.  A great deal is left to our imagination, which is both frustrating and strangely liberating.    Pierre Erwan Guillaume leaves us with a bleak existentialist mystery which he invites us to dissect and analyse at our leisure.  If probably helps if you’ve read a bit of Sartre and Camus beforehand.

The director’s inexperience does show in a number of places – most notably in the uneven pacing and abundance of slightly caricatured secondary characters. However, these imperfections do not greatly diminish the film’s impact and, if anything, they add to its rough-and-ready charm. Had the film been more polished, it would probably had far less of an impact.

One thing that cannot be faulted is the contribution from the lead actors – Jalil Lespert and Aurélien Recoing, two of French cinema’s finest, the former playing gauche sensitivity as convincingly as the latter plays brooding self-confidence. Both actors put in an incredibly intense performance which conveys the great inner torment of a soul wracked by dark sub-conscious desires. It is the most harrowingly realistic portrayal of two men who have reached the limit of their endurance and who see nothing but darkness ahead of them. Neither character is willing to accept the truth of his identity, so both are drawn inexorably to the precipice of self-destruction.

L’Ennemi naturel  is not a film that will appeal to everyone.  The abstract nature of its subject, the explicit sexual imagery (carried to excess in some places) and the lack of a closed narrative make it a demanding work that is not particularly comfortable to watch.  That said, it does exert a very tight vice-like hold on the spectator, and explores themes which few filmmakers are brave enough to tackle – and in such a refreshingly honest and imaginative manner.

© James Travers 2007

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