Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our own Capone's take on THE TRILOGY. You don't need me rambling on about something I have no idea about up here, so I'm gonna let Capone take it!
Hey, all. Capone in Chicago here with one of the most unusually bold moves in European cinema in the last few years. I’ve been reading about Belgian director Lucas Belvaux’s THE TRILOGY films for nearly two years (it played at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival and the 2003 Tribeca Festival, among others), and it has been creeping across the country since late last year. It’s a time commitment to be sure, but well worth the effort. I’m sure as I explain the structure of TRILOGY, I’ll make it sound far more complicated than it is, but here we go...
Needless to say, THE TRILOGY is three, full-length films (in Chicago, the Landmark Century Center Theatre is devoting a total of two weeks to screening the project, beginning May 28). Each of the three films features the same cast of main characters, with each movie focusing on different characters, whose lives are constantly intersecting with the other characters. Major characters in one film become walk-ons in another. The time span is roughly the same in all three films, so it’s common to see the same scene in two or three films, but each time we’re coming at it from a different point of view. And depending upon the characters at the center of each film, the same scene may seem tense and dramatic in one telling of it, and slightly comic in another. This is not a RASHOMON-type of storytelling. When we see a scene repeated, nothing about the facts changes, other than we’re a little more clued in about the players by the second or third time experiencing a moment. And I even think it’s safe to say that you can see these three films in any order. I happened to see them in the order they’re being promoted.
The first film, ON THE RUN, is a stone-cold thriller about Bruno (played by director Belvaux), an escaped Weather Underground-type revolutionary prisoner. He attempts to enlist the help of his former comrades in arms Jeanne to pick up where they left off in their anti-government struggle. But Jeanne is a teacher, wife, and mother. Much of the film centers on Bruce attempting to stay one step ahead of the police, headed by Pascal, a compromised cop attempting to regain some degree of credibility while attempting to keep a steady stream of morphine going to his addicted wife Agnes. When Bruce stumbles upon Agnes during a botched drug deal and trades her morphine for a place to hide, a mountain chalet owned by Agnes’ friend Cecile. The film is exciting, hair-raising, all the cliches we pull out to discuss a really solid rollercoaster ride. The film is filled with gun fights, explosions, incredible escapes by Bruno, and an ending that will make you forget to breathe for at least a minute. Sounds simple enough, right?
Film two is AN AMAZING COUPLE, which switches its focus and its mood to the previously mentioned Cecile (the chalet owner, played by Ornella Muti) and her husband Alain (Francois Morel), a man about to have a routine operation that he’s convinced will result in his death. So as not to alarm his loving wife, Alain sneaks around and tell her a few white lies as he visits his doctor. She becomes convinced he’s having an affair, and hires a cop (Pascal) to act as private detective to spy on her husband. Taking on the qualities of a romantic comedy, AN AMAZING COUPLE revisits a few of the sequences from ON THE RUN, including a confrontation between Cecile and Agnes at the chalet during which Cecile accuses Agnes of not bringing some anonymous lover there (as she claims Bruno is), but having an affair Alain instead. Although probably the least interesting of the three pieces of TRILOGY, it’s still got enough dark humor and character development that it makes a perfect set up for the melodrama-heavy part three. In AMAZING COUPLE, Bruno is barely visible, but the moody Pascal is brought more to the forefront.
Pascal (Gilbert Melki) and his junkie wife Agnes (Dominique Blanc) are at the heart of AFTER THE LIFE, the most rewarding entry here. Pascal struggles to keep his underworld connections happy about the whereabouts of Bruno so he doesn’t lose his morphine supply for his wife. Agnes, meanwhile, hounds him at home when he comes back from work empty handed. Needing the drugs so bad, she allows herself to be used by escaped convict Bruno as a means to avoiding the police. While Pascal appreciates the distraction in tailing a possibly cheating husband named Alain for Cecile. Before long, Pascal finds himself falling in love with the clearly vulnerable Cecile, a plot element only hinted at in AMAZING COUPLE. You see how this works? AFTER THE LIFE features some incredible acting by Melki and Blanc. The sympathy you feel for these characters completely changes after seeing this film. In the other two films, Pascal comes across as an uncaring heavy and Agnes is more of a victim, but AFTER THE LIFE alters your perception. Agnes’ treatment of her husband in unforgiving and cruel. Pascal does have a temper, but it’s clearly justified in this segment of the trilogy.
In this age of Tarantino-influenced filmmakers, messing around with time and perspective is not as unusual as it once was, but Belvaux has taken the idea of seeing as many sides of an encounter as possible to a new level. And in the process of carrying out his grand experiment, he’s put together three extraordinary films that get more intriguing as you work your way through them. Each film could easily stand on its own as a great work regardless of the other two parts, but together, the experiment succeeds in ways that are almost unimaginable. If you’re fortunate enough to have THE TRILOGY came through your city, block off the time and check it out.
Capone
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