gabrielle (chéreau, 2005)

For his newest film, acclaimed opera/theater/movie-director Patrice Chéreau shoots in 'Scope and duct-tapes his lenses to the actors' pores - looking for knots in the musculature. There are a few. This movie is green like aged copper, and brown, and heavy with shadows. A few isolated bright spots - in the parlor, in the kitchen - serve to remind us that it sucks to spend time there, too, as you only seem to've moved from a dark cellar to a brightly lit morgue. Chéreau and his co-writers have fashioned out of a Joseph Conrad story a plot that the movies have long since made tiresome: the currents of ennui and hatred that run through the Perfect, Bourgeois Household. But there is sustenance to be had from its technical qualities, which are faultless, and Pascal Greggory, who continues to prove that he is one of the world's best and most versatile actors.