Scènes de crimes (2000) - film review

Two police investigators, Fabian and Gomez, are assigned to look into the disappearance of a teenage girl, Marie Bourgoin.  Shortly after unearthing the remains of Marie’s missing dog, they discover the mutilated corpses of two young people.  When more dismembered bodies are found, it becomes clear that Fabian and Gomez are on the trail of a dangerous and sadistic serial killer.  For both men, this could be their final case...

Frédéric Schoendoerffer’s first film, Scènes de crimes, combines elements of the modern American thriller with its traditional French counterpart, the policier, and goes some way to redefining this important (and popular) genre of French cinema.   There are a number of obvious similarities with two other American-style thrillers which were released in France in the same year (2000): Cédric Kahn’s Roberto Succo and Mathieu Kassovitz’s Les Rivières pourpres.  The popularity of these films in suggests that French may have rediscovered their love for the crime thriller genre and that we can expect many such films in future years.

Although Scènes de crimes has some obvious shortcomings (for example, Schoendoerffer’s needlessly analytical and repetitive use of gory images weakens the film’s visual poetry), it does offer an interesting variation on a familiar theme.   The film shows that Schoendoerffer has talent and suggests that his career may be as distinguished as that of his father (the acclaimed film director Pierre Schoendoerffer).

Intense performances from Charles Berling and André Dussollier (two versatile and greatly respected actors) contribute greatly to the brooding atmosphere of the film.  By bringing in the family lives of the cops Fabian and Gomez into the narrative, Schoendoerffer gives his characters far greater depth than you’d expect to find in a standard thriller – and the Berling-Dussollier pairing works surprisingly well, to the extent that this become the film’s focal point.

One of the most striking features of Scènes de crimes is that it takes some fairly radical departures from the conventional thriller, whilst at the same time adhering to a familiar formula.  All of the elements of the traditional French policier are there – tough, slightly amoral heroes, a complex web of intrigue and, most importantly, an atmosphere of gloom and mistrust which can only be described as noirish.  Yet there is also dark cynicism, a stifled nihilistic cry, which is manifested through its graphic portrayal of a threat which appears to have no bounds (extreme violence, grotesque killings, etc.).  This is not a sick film intended to titillate morally vacuous young men who derive some kind of morbid satisfaction from watching displays of extreme violence.  Rather, it is a daring and intelligent work which vividly reflects the grim reality of the kind of society we are now living in.  The alternative way of life, illustrated by the film’s optimistic epilogue, appears strangely unattainable in a world that has apparently lost all sense of morality and decency.

© James Travers 2003

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