Loaded with suspense

Two stories run parallel in Lemming, an excellent specimen of French cinema, and one event leads to another, writes Ervell E. Menezes

When Alain Getty (Laurent Lucas) invites his boss Richard Pollock (Andre Dussollier) and his wife Alice (Charlotte Rampling) to dinner, it is the beginning of the fireworks and tension that lasts right through 129 minutes of the film.

Pretty Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Alain’s wife, completes the foursome. First the boss arrives late and wants a rain check on the dinner but later changes his mind. Then his wife throws tantrums, accuses Mr Pollock of whoring around and when allowed to let off steam empties her wine glass on his face. They naturally leave.

The next day, when Mr Pollock is away in Korea, Mrs Pollock goes to the office and tries to seduce Alain but he resists it and returns home. The next day Mrs Pollock goes to the Getty household and fills in Benedicte with info about her husband. Even worse, she commits suicide in their house.

Meanwhile, the Gettys’ draininge is blocked by a dead rat/hamster or so they think. Actually it is a lemming, a Scandinavian rodent. These two stories run parallel. It is a major malaise that grips the two families and director Dominik Moll has his viewers in a trance. Suspense and action go hand in hand and one event leads to another.

At one time it looks like Fatal Attraction or its grandparent Play Misty for Me (Clint Eastwood’s first directorial effort) when the seduction takes place. "The body says yes but the mind says no — sad," is Alice’s comment. But then the film switches genres and is loaded with suspense. That Richard Pollock is a womaniser adds to the drama when he set his eyes on Benedicte.

After suspense, crime is the next stop. But all this is absorbingly narrated and the twists and turns in the plot are not easy to anticipate. How the boss-employee relationship changes is the crux of the story and then at the end the hamster riddle is also solved. There is also a touch of Ingmar Bergman and the hereafter. It is French cinema at its best and director Moll has an excellent cast to support him.

Handsome Laurent Lucas is excellent as the harried husband who seems to be hallucinating and Charlotte Gainsbourg is not far behind as his youthful wife. Veteran Charlotte Rampling does her bit and photographs of her younger, sexy self are seen in the Pollock household to revive memories of her heyday. The foursome is completed by Andre Dussollier whose Mr Pollock is also convincing.

An excellent film, surely among the best of IFFI 05.

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