Les Rivières pourpres (2000)

Les Rivières pourpres is a French thriller film first released in 2000, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.  The film stars Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel, Nadia Farès, Dominique Sanda and Karim Belkhadra.  It has also been released under the title: The Crimson Rivers.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


An expert in serial killings, Pierre Niemans, is called in to investigate a gruesome murder in the French Alps, not far from an isolated university village.  The body is hideously mutilated and Niemans is convinced this is not an isolated incident.  He is right: more grisly killings are to follow.  Meanwhile, another cop, Max Kerkerian, is looking into the desecration of a young girl’s grave, which has been marked with a Nazi swastika.  He learns that the girl’s mother has been in a convent for the last twenty years where she still claims that demons murdered her child.  When their paths cross, Niemans and Max soon discover that the killings have a pattern revealing that the university is not what it seems...

Mathieu Kassovitz’s first venture into the big budget genre film is a bold attempt to beat the Americans at their own game – a fast-moving, gripping suspense thriller which literally has you on the edge of your seat for most of the film.  It proved to be a great commercial success in France (attracting just over three million spectators) and also in the United States.

Whilst Les Rivières pourpres has impressive production values – particularly the stunning cinematography and solid acting performances from Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel – its weakness are all too evident.   Similarities with recent American films abound and Kassovitz just fails to make his personal mark on the film.  As a result, the narrative style and content feel just a little too familiar and those expecting the kind of unbridled creative flair and shocking unpredictability seen in Kassovitz’s previous films (notably La Haine and Assassin(s)) can only be somewhat disappointed with this near miss.

More seriously, the film is let down badly by its ending, which is a major disappointment.  The film manages to build the tension and hold our attention admirably but when it comes to resolving the mystery the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.  Not only is the resolution too rushed, it is unconvincing and can in no way be described as a satisfying conclusion to the mystery which preceded it.  It looks as if the imagination, the time or the money (maybe all three) just ran out on Kassovitz when he needed it most.   With a stronger ending, the film would almost certainly probably have been rated as a classic of its genre.

© James Travers 2006

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