Jason says: “The
almost-banal serial killer isn’t quite a staple of crime fiction but
it’s not exactly uncommon, either, likely in part because the challenge
of creating a character who is simultaneously unremarkable and
monstrous is fascinating to writers and filmmakers, even if it often
only appeals to a relatively specialized audience. That’s the case with
CRUEL – it’s admirable and intriguing, although the story can be a
tough nut to crack and swallow.
“The killer in this case is Pierre Tardieu (Jean-Jacques Lelté),
a
nondescript man of no fixed occupation in Toulouse who has killed a
great many victims over the years because he is invisible enough to
stalk his prey without being remembered before abducting them and
keeping them in a hidden basement for weeks or months, then disposing
of the bodies in a way that suggests unrelated disappearances.
Recently, though, a couple of things have changed: He has included a
number of ID cards with his latest victim, alerting the police to a
long-active serial killer in their midst, and the owner of a stationery
shop where Tardieu has been buying notebooks since he was a kid
introduces him to Laure Ouari (Magali Moreau), a music teacher who
appears to stir actual affection in him.
“Jean-Jacques Lelté has relatively few screen credits, which is
the
sort of thing that may help his performance as Pierre; he’s a blank
slate onto which it is difficult to impose familiar characteristics or
motive, and the sparse details among the relative blankness that
Lelté
and writer/director Eric Cherrière create draws the audience in
even
more. Lelté plays him as a sort of everyman with just the
tiniest bit
of exaggeration around the edges in most cases, although his detached
and asocial nature is noticeable. Sometimes it just comes off as being
bored, though – especially noticeable in contrast to the sense of humor
that starts to emerge when the police finally start to suspect him of a
crime. He’s also got a nice chemistry with Magali Moreau, who makes
Laure seem a little more tentative than she actually is.
“The best performance in CRUEL, though, may be Maurice Poli as Pierre’s
paralyzed father, a man whose life is already so twisted by pain and
helplessness that the torment that comes from being in the care of a
serial-killer son must be too much to bear, but he has no choice in the
matter. He can’t speak, he can barely move, he’s trapped just as
completely as the people Pierre kidnaps and locks in the hidden
basement that Pierre’s grandfather used to hide Jews during the war,
perverting their family’s best legacy. It’s a horribly twisted sort of
helplessness that Poli makes clear to the audience but which the other
characters must be able to miss.
“Compared to that, the rest of the film isn’t exactly dull – there are
riveting moments as Pierre spends time with his victims like this is
being social in some way – but that’s a difficult intensity to match.
Otherwise, Cherrière (a crime novelist as well as a filmmaker)
builds a
decent story of a serial killer who is successful because he takes
great care to be invisible, but does not initially seem to put a hook
in to really make it singular. Why is Pierre starting to leave evidence
now, just has he begins the romance with Laure? I suspect that it ties
in with the film’s title – Pierre inflicts a mostly non-physical
torture on his victims, isolating them and making them believe that
they will have a chance to win their freedom in ‘last meal’ segments
that are some of the film’s most tense, and perhaps without initially
realizing it, he knows that his masterpiece will require his being
discovered.
“That’s my theory, at least; Cherrière plays things close enough
to the
vest that at times CRUEL can seem a little more generic than it
actually is. It’s not a bad example of the subgenre, though, with
craftsmanship to rival its main characters’ work. 4 cats
“Seen 17 July 2015 in the J.A. de Séve Cinema (Fantasia
International
Film Festival, DCP)” |
