Dir. Claude Chabrol, Germany / France, 2007, 105 mins, subtitles
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, François Bérleand, Patrick Bruel
Review by Francesca Neagle
"Any resemblance to persons living or dead is, as they say, coincidental."
Maybe, maybe not; it doesn’t really matter. Despite the disclaimer, A Comedy of Power freely takes inspiration from the Elf Aquitaine scandal of the 90s, which exposed extensive corruption in the then state-owned French gas giant. Protagonist Jeanne Charmant Killman (Huppert) is styled on the real-life examining magistrate, Eva Joly. But the similarities and comparisons have to end here, so the story can give way to the “comedy”: the wry and witty dialogue and the behaviour of the characters as they come to terms with the potency and impotence that they lose, gain, grant, and envy. Although based on real events, the details of the alleged corruption are vague and utterly meaningless; they become, in fact, coincidental. The only commodity the audience need concern themselves with is power. But does this lack of regard for the enquiring mind of the audience simply throw up more confusion?
The film’s real strength and watchability comes via its characterisation. We know that wrongdoing and criminality abounds (though we don’t quite know the whats, whys and wherefores), because we know Killman is charged with the task of investigating it. This disengagement from the facts leaves the viewer wholly reliant on the characters’ own judgements: we become the passive spectators of a power game, still ignorant of the rules. This detachment makes it feel as though the veteran cast are having to save the film, rather than enhance it. Despite this, Huppert proves a commanding personality, embodying in a single character all the delusion, vulnerability, loneliness, and hunger that befit her lofty position. And she almost saves the film. Though theoretically Killman is strength personified, and above the law, she is also a woman; and it’s through this gender distinction that director Claude Chabrol is able to explore another layer of power interplay amongst the upper echelons of French society. Killman’s feminine red gloves remain a constant visual metaphor, with their allusions to Lady Macbeth and to gauntlets, and they juxtapose nicely with the flashes of red on the lapels of her male antagonists, who squirm in her office under questioning. But it’s all somehow not quite enough, even as otherwise imposing men humorously attempt to flirt, condescend and threaten their way out of strife. Everything looks good; the real locations, the décor; the overriding sense of French chic, right down to the detail of Michel Humeau’s (Bérleand’s) jaunty Parisian mobile phone ringtone. But the film still feels flat.
Open-ended appears to have been Chabrol’s intention; incompleteness a necessary evil. But we never understand quite why Killman’s husband is so aggrieved by having such a powerful wife. Is her blossoming relationship with his nephew Félix (Thomas Chabrol) a romantic one? Has she found an ally or even her antithesis in the less career-driven, younger man? Yet by directorial example we’ve stopped asking questions, and given up. It can be fun not knowing the rules of the game, but here it’s never clear why we’re not allowed to. Maybe we should have given up at half-time.
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