L'Ennemi naturel (2004)
Directed by Pierre-Erwan Guillaume

Film Review

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 more usual crime drama, where there is a well-honed plot which ends with the mystery tidily explained, this film has very little in the way of 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, as a kind of limbering up exercise.

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 way.

Film Synopsis

Nicolas Luhel, a young and fairly inexperienced police officer, arrives in the remote Breton town of Plouescat to begin an investigation into the death of a teenage boy.  The mother of the unfortunate adolescent has no doubt that her son was murdered, and she is just as certain that her husband, Serge Tanguy, was the killer, although it is unclear what possible motive he could have had.  As Nicholas starts making his enquiries he is struck by the fact that no one in the locality appears willing to help him.

The cold primal savagery of the coastal landscape soon begins to affect Nicolas's state of mind, awakening in him unfamiliar and worrying urges.  Tanguy is certainly a suspicious individual - reticent, intimidating, possibly dangerous - but so are many others in this inhospitable provincial backwater.  When a key witness in the case suddenly commits suicide Nicholas becomes even more convinced that something is seriously amiss.  Increasingly, he finds himself drawn to Tanguy, and little by little his fascination develops into a dark and intimate obsession...