Madame Edouard (2004) - film review

A bizarre series of murders in Brussels disturbs the peace of Commissaire Léon, who would rather be getting on and doing some knitting.  It’s bad enough that he lives with his mother, a woman whose idea of good taste is a leopard-skin covered cooking pot, and has a secretary who spends more time buying novelty earrings than doing any work.  However, duty calls, so Léon starts his investigation, aided by his timid assistant Bornéo and troublesome dog Babelutte.  Each of the murder victims is a young woman, found on a grave in a cemetery, with the right hand severed.  Léon’s hunt for the killer brings him to the bar “A la mort subite”, where one of the dead women rented a room.  Another tenant of the hostelry is Irma, a transvestite formerly known as Edouard, who has just learnt that she/he has a daughter – a fact that his estranged wife has kept from him/her for 20 years.  Within hours of Irma meeting his/her daughter, the latter disappears.  The serial killer appears to have claimed another victim…

Madame Edouard is the first full-length film from successful Belgian writer Nadine Monfils, an inspired adaptation of the first in her series of popular crime novels featuring the unconventional detective Léon.   The film’s strength lies not in its plot – which is pretty thin and unconvincing – but in its extraordinary array of characters.  These include an overly temperamental chef, a widow with the most appalling taste in interior design, another widow with a dwarf fetish, a sympathetic middle-aged transvestite, a priest with a flair for innovation, a police secretary who looks like what you might see whilst experimenting with LSD, a pathologist who enjoys his work far too much, and, to cap it all, a police inspector who would rather be knitting a coat for his dog than investigating murders.   It’s this cavalcade of grotesques, brought to life by a top-notch cast that makes Madame Edouard such a sumptuous black comedy.  There are also some touches of genuine human feeling (Irma meeting her/his daughter), but these are largely overshadowed by a seemingly relentless barrage of outrageously off-the-wall comedy.  The film is unsettling in its juxtaposition of the ordinary and the macabre but it is also hugely enjoyable.  Wouldn’t it be great if Nadine Monfils were to adapt some more of her novels in a similar vein – providing Michel Blanc and Josiane Basako were hired to play Commissaire Léon and his “couldn’t be arsed” secretary.

© James Travers 2006

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