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LA MOUSTACHE
Directed by: Emmanuel Carrère.
Produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint.
Written by: Jérôme Beaujour & Carrère, based on his novel.
Cinematography by: Patrick Blossier.
Edited by Camille Cotte.
Music by Philip Glass.
Released by: Koch Lorber Films.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 84 min. Not Rated.
Starring Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Hippolyte Girardot & Cylia Malki.
DVD Features: Making-of featurette. Interview with director Carrère & editor Camille Cotte. Trailer.

Emmanuel Carrère’s film has a kicker (or Kafkaesque) of an idea. Marc (Vincent Lindon), tired of his moustache, decides to shave it off, even though his wife says, “I like it. I wouldn’t know who you are without it.” After he does, he can’t be sure whether his wife and his friends are messing with his head. They insist he never had a moustache. It becomes a point of contention that drives him to consider if he is going crazy. Or is it his wife who’s loosing it? Why did she notice that he had a moustache before and not now?

The alluring premise is set in a very mundane, minimalist middle-class pad. Marc has a successful career, a sexy wife, Agnès (Emmanuelle Devos), and seemingly good friends (Munich’s Mathieu Amalric, with only limited screen time). Marc’s mental quagmire provides for some brief, touching moments between husband and wife, as she tries to come to grips with the fact that Marc thinks he had a moustache for years, which should be a trivial matter (then again, can vanity be a trivial matter in terms of being and perception?) But Marc becomes more inscrutable to her when he fails to remember that his father has died and is not, as he believes, expecting the couple for lunch. The film sets down a good mystery, albeit never in the Hitchcockian mode advertised on the DVD. But then Carrère takes a left turn and the film never recovers: Marc, in a fit of panic over possibly being committed to a mental asylum, takes flight to Hong Kong solo, and repeatedly and obsessively travels over and over again on a ferry across Victoria Harbour as the film becomes an even more incoherent allegory.

Of course, Carrère is twisting around the expectations of the audience by placing a character into turmoil over what’s real and what’s not. Lindon rises to the challenge of making Marc a believably nuanced lunatic or paranoid, depending on point of view. But the film doesn’t even have that fun sense of trying to figure out the surreal, à la David Lynch. It’s just way too moody and sardonic for that, and Carrère doesn’t offer any sort of twist or catharsis on Marc’s behalf.

DVD Extras: There’s little here except for an interview with Carrère and the editor, where they talk about changing around the plot structure from the novel. After hearing Carrère, one might be tempted to consider the novel as being superior to the movie. And there’s a making-of featurette with Devos possibly being the most forthcoming, as she admits she doesn’t understand the film’s story. Jack Gattanella
January 22, 2007