La Dame de trèfle (2010)
Directed by Jérôme Bonnell

Film Review

With his three first features - Le Chignon d'Olga (2002), Les Yeux clairs (2005) and J'attends quelqu'un (2007) - Jérôme Bonnell has already established himself as one of France's most exciting young filmmakers, a committed auteur with a particular flair for dissecting the complexities of human relationships and the traumas of individuals struggling to communicate their thoughts and feelings with others.  In his fourth full-length film, La Dame de trèfle, Bonnell continues in the same vein, but adopts an altogether different style, one that is much darker in tone (but still retaining the stark naturalism of the director's earlier work), as he bravely ventures into film noir territory.  With its shadowy, oneiric texture and grimly brooding atmosphere, which tightens like a noose around the neck, the film feels more like a dark parody of a Grimm's fairytale than a conventional French thriller.  It is not an easy film to watch, but it has a strangely mesmeric quality about it. 

The main characters remind us of the protagonists in Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants terribles - a brother and sister who have become locked in an obsessive mutual dependency and who consequently regard the outside world as a threat, a twisted reflection of their own perverse relationship.  The brother - admirably played by Malik Zidi - has allowed himself to be lured into a life of crime, and so he already has one foot on the escalator that will bear him down to his own private Hell.  Zidi's aura of child-like innocence (previously exploited to great effect by François Ozon in Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes, 2000) gives his character a desperate fragility, against which the world that surrounds him appears relentlessly cruel and unforgiving.  Florence Loiret, apparently Bonnell's favourite actress, plays the part of the equally withdrawn sister Argine (named after the Queen of Clubs in a pack of French playing cards, hence the film's title) - she exhibits the same near-autistic vulnerability and detachment from the outside world.

By contrast, the two other main characters in the drama are brutal interlopers and therefore a threat to the siblings' perfect world.  The relationship of Argine to her bullying boyfriend Loïc (Marc Barbé) is mirrored by that of her brother Aurélien to his criminal partner Simon (Jean-Pierre Darroussin, surprisingly convincing in the role of a thuggish heavy).  Both relationships have a dangerous, sadomasochistic edge to them and probably exist only because of the subconscious desire that Argine and Aurélien have to sever the umbilical cord that ties them to one another.  Unfortunately, far from weakening the siblings' mutual dependency, Loïc and Simon merely succeed in strengthening it, and in the end the brother and his sister become so closely welded to one another that they could be mistaken for Siamese twins.

La Dame de trèfle has a very different feel and impact to Bonnell's previous films, which could explain why the critical reaction it has received so far has been generally mixed.  Whilst it may be gloomier and somewhat less cohesive than J'attends quelqu'un (Bonnell's best film to date), it offers a similarly astute examination of fragile, marginalized characters who have allowed themselves to become trapped by their own insecurities and who struggle to bond with the outside world.  The film noir plot ingredients are almost an irrelevance.  What concerns Bonnell, and what should concern his audience, is how his characters cope with the crises that come their way - will they be strengthened morally and emotionally by their experiences, or will they withdraw further into their shell, to whither like a plant in a spot that is in a permanent shade?  La Dame de trèfle may be a less engaging proposition than Bonnell's previous films, but it is nonetheless a mature and intense piece of cinema, one that drags us forcibly into a very dark place and then skedaddles, leaving us to meditate on the bleakness of existence - as every true film noir should.

Film Synopsis

Since their parents died, Aurélien and Argine have lived together in their home in a small provincial town, and have become as close to one another as any brother and sister can be.  By day, Aurélien makes an honest living as a florist; by night, he deals in stolen metal with his accomplice Simon.  Aurélien is unsure what to do when Simon turns up unexpectedly on his doorstep one evening, hunted by the police.  Simon demands money but Aurélien is unable to help him and ends up accidentally killing his criminal partner in a tussle.   When the body is later discovered by the police, suspicion immediately falls on Argine's aggressive boyfriend Loïc, who had a violent argument with Simon on the evening he met his death.  Aurélien's worries are only just beginning...