SYNOPSIS:
LEMMING marks the eagerly awaited follow-up to Dominik Moll's
hugely successful thriller, 'Harry, He's Here to Help'. LEMMING
provides another tension-filled, off-kilter riff on the interactions
of two couples.
Alain
Getty (Laurent Lucas), a young and brilliant engineer, and
his wife Benedicte, (Charlotte Gainsbourg) move to a new city
following Alain's work transfer. They invite Alain's new boss
(André Dussolier) and his wife (Charlotte Rampling)
to dinner one evening.
However
the difference between the two couples couldn't be more extreme:
on one hand the
young model couple, on the other, a pair corroded by hate
and resentment.
This
disastrous dinner and the discovery of a mysterious dead rodent
in the kitchen sink waste
pipe marks the descent into pandemonium of their once perfect
life.
MOVIE
REVIEW
Directors
who mess with your mind – you either love them or hate
them. These people enjoy placing red herrings all over their
works, raise your expectations so high that when the payoff
comes, you will be left speechless – either by the film’s
ingenious setup or on the other end of the scale, its ridiculous
absurdity. Just
by looking at the title of this French movie which opened
the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, you’d have absolutely
no idea what it is about. Some of us less knowledgeable mortals
won’t even know what a lemming is.
One thing
that we can all agree though, the poster featuring Charlotte
Gainsbourg’s concerned expression and Charlotte Rampling’s
menacing stare is one of the creepiest we have seen so far.
Gainsbourg
plays Benedicte, a homely wife who has just moved into a new
suburb with her engineer husband Alain (played by an earnest-looking
Laurent Lucas). The couple invites Alain’s new boss
and his wife (Rampling in a very eerie role) over to dinner.
After
an unexpected outbreak at the dinner and the discovery of
a dead lemming in the couple’s kitchen pipe, things
begin to go very wrong, in the most bizarre way you can imagine.
Yes, we
cannot help you too much with what exactly is going to happen
in the film. You have to watch it yourself to experience how
odd things become by the second third of the 129-minute movie.
Although
it clocks in a total run time of over two hours, you will
feel that the pace is slow and steady, simply because you
want to know what is going to happen. Of course, the sturdy
performance of the entire cast helps a lot to keep your eyes
glued on the screen too.
Gainsbourg
brings to her role certain loveliness and vulnerability which
mash nicely together to pleasurable effect. Rampling, on the
other hand, plays her character with a determined brutality
and coldness that will send shivers down your spine. And she
does not even need a lot of screen time for that.
Alain’s
psychological roller coaster ride is effectively brought out
by Lucas’ portrayal of a helpless man who, well, seems
to be as puzzled as us.
The entire
mood of the film directed by Dominik Moll is very Hitchcock-ian,
with a looming air of suspense and uncertainty stringing the
scenes together. Even the music score composed by David Whitaker
resonates of the harsh and disturbing string and piano notes
composed by Hitchcock’s long-time composer Bernard Herrmann.
At
the end of the day, we still do not know how to categorize
this film. A psychological thriller as this review seems to
suggest? A supernatural suspense as far as the plot is concerned?
We do
not have the answer to that.
One fact
we can furnish you with details though: A lemming is a small
rodent found near the Arctic, and is believed to be a suicidal
species.
But
when the end credits roll and the song “Dream a Little
Dream of Me” starts playing, we hope that the film will
leave a strange sense of satisfaction in you, like it did
in us.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
This Code 3 DVD does not even have a trailer. Tsk..
SPECIAL FEATURES
There
is nothing to complain about the visual transfer. There is
an option of either French Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1.
MOVIE
RATING:
OVERALL
DVD RATING :
Review
by John Li
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