Möbius (2013)
Directed by Eric Rochant

Film Review

When it was first released in 1993, Les Patriotes - Eric Rochant's third film after his hit debut feature Un monde sans pitié (1989) and popular follow-up Aux yeux du monde (1990) - was panned by the critics and ended up being a commercial failure.  This spectacular flop effectively derailed Rochant's career and for the past two decades the director has struggled to redeem himself, although cinematic atrocities such as L'École pour tous (2006) have done nothing to restore his credibility.   Twenty years on, Les Patriotes is now held in far higher esteem and is widely considered one of the finest espionage films to have been made by a French filmmaker.  Perhaps this is what led Rochant to revisit the well-worn genre with his most recent film, Möbius.

Rochant's concept - a slick modern spy thriller seamlessly dovetailing into a lurid romantic drama à la française - would have had much greater appeal had it not already been dealt with by Nicolas Saada in his 2009 film Espion(s).  With Saada's impressive film still fresh in our minds, Rochant's can hardly escape coming across as a lame imitation.  Both films are obviously inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's classic Notorious (1946), but whereas Saada employs the conventions of a familiar genre with flair and imagination to support the central love story, Rochant merely becomes overwhelmed by them and appears incapable of drawing a coherent narrative from the stack of dog-eared clichés that masquerade as an original screenplay.

The most memorable sequence in Hitchcock's Notorious is of course the famous long kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, reputed to be the most erotic kiss in movie history.  Rochant's attempt to trump this is a series of explicit love scenes that, far from being erotic, merely depict the grotesque mechanics of love making with as much detachment as a documentarist filming a butcher trimming a pig carcass. This directorial faux pas encapsulates what is fundamentally wrong with the film overall - Rochant eschews the restraint and subtlety of his early films in favour of a more sensationalist approach that is more likely to appeal to today's mainstream cinema audience.  Möbius appears to have fallen foul of the ungainly Hollywoodification of French cinema that has been going on for the past decade, as film directors become ever more commercially minded and increasingly willing to sacrifice their artistic integrity for short-term popularity.

To be fair, Rochant hasn't entirely sold out to the money men and proves that he is still very much an auteur at heart.  He avoids the overblown action stunts and cartoon-like characterisation that have become almost de rigueur in today's thrillers.  He rejects digital photography in favour of old fashioned 35 mm film, so that Möbius, whilst set in the present day, has a slick retro feel, reminiscent of those classic much-loved thrillers of the 1970s.  The film looks good, it boasts an excellent cast, headed by recent Oscar winner Jean Dujardin, but it is handicapped by an overly convoluted script and some painfully self-conscious mise-en-scène (the aforementioned bedroom scenes being a case in point, so laboured that it is impossible to watch them without cringing or choking to death on your popcorn).

Dujardin shows no sign of succumbing to the sin of complacency after his Oscar glory.  Despite his dodgy accent, his (supposedly) Russian secret agent is another compelling character portrayal, one that could not be further from the hilarious spoof spy Dujardin played so brilliantly in Michel Hazanavicius's OSS 117 films.  The ever-sensual Cécile De France is well-suited to play Dujardin's seductive screen lover, although, like most of the cast, she has an uphill job struggling to make her stereotypical character credible.  Émilie Dequenne and Tim Roth, both fine actors, are far less successful and appear content merely to play the lazy caricatures that Rochant has served up for them.  On the acting front, only Dujardin excels, and it is probably fair to say that without his charismatic attention-grabbing presence, the film would be scarcely worth watching, even on free-to-air television.

It is hardly worth mentioning that the film's title derives from the famous Möbius Strip, a strip of paper which, when twisted and joined at its two ends, forms a single surface.  It is an overly elaborate metaphor for what Rochant is attempting, namely to fuse two very different kinds of film - the espionage thriller and romantic drama - so that we cannot tell where one ends and the other takes over (equally it alludes to the impossibility of separating one's personal and professional lives).  Unfortunately, it also provides a succinct résumé of the film's main shortcoming: a narrative that hungrily devours itself and goes absolutely nowhere.  With its elegant design and strong central performance from Jean Dujardin, Möbius represents a substantial improvement on Rochant's recent cinematic exploits, but, marred by its jarring excesses and a mediocre script, it lacks the inspired touch, coherence and daring of Les Patriotes.  Eric Rochant still has some way to go if he is to live up to his early promise, but he is moving in the right direction, à la Möbius.

Film Synopsis

Grégory Lioubov, an officer in the Russian secret services, is sent to Monaco to monitor the activities of a powerful businessman.  As part of this mission, his team recruits Alice, a financial wizard.  Believing he has been betrayed, Grégory breaks the golden rule and makes contact with Alice, his undercover agent.  What ensues is an impossible romance that will inevitably bring about their downfall...