The Color of Lies

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Audience Member René Sterne (Jacques Gamblin) was once a famous painter but now lives in a small town and makes the majority of his money as a teacher. His mood is always dark, in contrast to his wife Vivianne (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is an eternally sunny optimist. He needs that light because he's now the main suspect in the assault and murder of a ten-year-old, which is being investigated by the new chief of police, Frédérique Lesage (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi). What does the gossip columnist Germain-Roland Desmot (Antoine de Caunes) know about the case? Is he close to having an affair with Vivianne, who may be withdrawing from the happiness of her life and needing a change? Director Claude Chabrol, who co-wrote this with Odile Barski, was one of the few French New Wave directors to not only keep directing for his entire life, but to make movies that were embraced by the mainstream. He generally kept to these small-town murders and how they impacted the traditional family lives of his victims in many films, variations on a theme that always remain slightly different and engaging, like a series of paintings from one period or theme. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member A mysterious murder in a small town. A very young victim of a pedophile (I hate this word to describe an abuser. What? Does a cinephile abuses films?!) possibly. There is not much other explanation. This is why I did know what the film was really about. There is mystery, there are many lies, but nothing is gripping. We are in face of the murder witout knowing anything about it. We can't root for the already dead victim. We can only hope the murderer is caught but we are at a loss about how to catch him/her. We hope there will be an unusual resolution, somehow. We follow the characters, eliminating them one after the other as our suspects. We find the guilty was not amongst our suspects but in front of us nevertheless. We also find other criminals being caught along the way and one lucky/unlucky couple. It is a story that seems possible, true and untrue at the same time. Is Chabrol having fun with us? Is this a comedy? I had a really good time pondering while visiting France in film. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Claude Chabrol was both an amazing and puzzling filmmaker. Though, it seems he went through a bit of a dry spell, he started making highly relevant films again starting in the 1990's through the end of his life. I had forgotten how highly entertaining and interesting this film was until I revisited it again on blu-ray. Just as when I saw it upon its release to US cinemas, it makes me scratch my head. This is not so much a murder mystery as it is a surprisingly fast-paced study of the human condition under crisis. From the very start to the bitter end, the viewer is hooked. Although, he would go on to make better films that fall into this category [ Merci Pour Le Choclat and La Ceremonie come to mind ] -- there is something particularly interesting about this film. Perhaps it seems to "set us up" for a crime caper but delivers something entirely different by the time we arrive to the end. In my opinion, this is very close to a perfectly made film. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member The worst role played of a detective!! Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Ä°nsan iliÅkilerini baÅarıyla ön plana çıkaran Claude Chabrol bir polisiyesi. Fransız Yeni Dalga akımının usta yönetmeni Claude Chabrolâ(TM)un son dönem filmlerinden biri olan Au Coeur Du Mensonge, psikolojik derinliÄi olan gerilimli bir polisiye. Kà 1/4çà 1/4k bir kıyı kasabası olan Brittanyâ(TM)ye yeni atanan polis Åefi Frederique Lesage iÅinin beklediÄinden daha hareketli geçeceÄini anlamakta gecikmez. 10 yaÅında kà 1/4çà 1/4k bir kız tecavà 1/4ze uÄrayıp öldà 1/4rà 1/4lmà 1/4Åtà 1/4r. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member An underwhelming plot is really made more than it appears by the excellent performance of the main cast. Sandrine Bonnaire, excellent in her polar fragilities and unforeseen complexities in her portrayed character, develops her role beyond the confines of the plot, and at the end leaves you thinking much more than you'd have expected from a fairly simplistic whodunit (which itself pans out in a boring, unsatisfying finish). See it for the husband-wife-lover dynamic, the human tension that Chabrol is/was much better at exploring when he wasn't trying to do his crime drama. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Color of Lies

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