I don't like knowing too much about films before going to see them. Even knowing that something is a "revenge thriller" is enough to colour my reading of a whole film so I avoid reading about films I'm likely to want to see. So how do I know what I want to see, you ask? Usually my wife will give me a few fragments to work with: a director whose previous film I liked, an actor I raved about or simply the fact that the words "Die" and "Hard" appear in the title (and in that order). I also like French thrillers of all sorts which is in part what this is. Luckily with tonight's film I'd read about it a few months ago, we'd decided we'd like to see it and finally got round to it tonight, giving me plenty of time to forget everything I'd read. So why see it? The storyline is slight but that's part of it's charm. There are no over-reaching story arcs, no big build ups, just a simple story, fairytale-like in its simplicity. That's not to say there aren't shades of good and evil and a point of view that slips between righteousness and mallace.
The music's also fantastic and a major presence in shaping the mood throughout the film, both Jérôme Lemonnier's original score and the pieces performed by the film's musicians.
These are the pieces in the film:
Dimitri Chostakovitch (Trio op. 67 n°2)
Franz Schubert (Trio op. 148 D897)
Johann-Sebastian Bach (Prélude BWV 875 en ré mineur)
