Steamy Psychological Thriller Done Right: François Ozon's Double Lover

L'Amant Double/Double Lover (2017) - Ozon

Based on Joyce Carol Oates' short novel Lives of The Twins, François Ozon concocts yet another sly, sexy psychological thriller starring Marine Vacth and Jérémie Renier. Vacth plays Chloe, a young woman suffering from intense stomach pain. Unable to find the cause of her symptoms, her doctor suggests seeing a therapist. So she becomes a patient of Paul Meyer (Renier), a mild mannered, handsome psychologist. At first, Chloe is skeptical to open herself up to a stranger, but the mutual attraction is palpable. With the help of compassionate Paul, she pours out her soul, appointment after appointment. And soon enough they fall in love. After Paul declares his love for her, they move in together.

While unpacking Paul's belongings, Chloe finds his old passport with a different sir name, Delord. He has a simple explanation - he took in his mother's maiden name when he went into practice, since Paul Meyer sounds better. She drops the subject, but a seed of distrust is planted: 'He knows everything about me. But I know nothing of him.' The stomach pain returns soon after.

On the way home from her museum watchmen job (she was a former model who lost interests after seeing the sleazy side of the industry), Chloe sees Paul or someone who looks exactly like him on the street talking to another woman. Paul denies that it was him, saying it must have been her job related stress. He recommends seeing another therapist for her stomach pain. She finds out that the man who looks just like Paul is his estranged twin brother Louis (also played by Renier), who's also a practicing therapist. Under the false pretense, she starts seeing Louis.

Louis turns out to be the opposite of Paul. He is cold, brutish and calculating. And naturally, Chloe can't help but being sexually attracted to him. Chloe starts wondering why Paul has been hiding the fact that he has a twin brother. And why Louis doesn't want her to tell Paul about their encounters. After experiencing aggressive sexual advances from Louis, Chloe gives in to her desires, and they become lovers.

Like many of his films, Double Lover is an absorbing ride. Carefully crafted with its twists and turns, the narrative pulls you in right from the beginning and never let you go. Visually, Hitchcockian elements are everywhere from the spiral staircases to the wall of mirrors. Vacth, working with Ozon for the second time after Young and Beautiful, shows her great emotional range as a woman who struggles with doubts, jealousy and desire. There is a darker dimension to her than Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby or Chatherine Deneuve in Repulsion. She is definitely not some damsel in distress. Renier, a Belgian actor who's been a Dardenne Bros regular. It's interesting to see the scrawny working class kid from La Promisse, ascending to one of the hottest romantic male leads in French cinema. He shines in a dual role, basically playing the good and the darker side of the same person.

There have been many great psychological, erotic thrillers involving twins both real and imagined - Dead Ringers, Sisters, The Dark Half come to mind when considering Double Lover. But it being an Ozon film, it's all about its protagonist creating a great, compelling narrative. Like Ozon himself, they are master storytellers, who is taking us for a ride. It's a highly seductive film with great many effortlessly sensual sequences.

I find it funny that the film is being released on Valentines Day against another Fifty Shades series. Let me put it simply - French does it better, effortlessly. Steamy and seductive, Double Lover will make an infinitely better choice for a date movie.

Double Lover opens on Valentines day 2/14 nationwide in US.

Metaphysical Thriller Set in Afghanistan

Ni ciel, ni la terre/Neither Heaven, Nor Earth (2015) - Cogitore

Neither Heaven Nor Earth is an effective, minimalistic metaphysical thriller set in a battlefield of Afghanistan from a French visual artist/filmmaker, Clément Cogitore, in his feature film debut.

It tells about French soldiers stationed in the Wakhan valley, an arid, remote mountain somewhere in Afghanistan, headed by Capt. Antares (The Dardennes Bros. regular Jérémie Renier). Through an army interpreter, they are keeping an uneasy relationship with nearby village folks, mostly sheep herders whom they are supposedly protecting from Taliban elements.

First it's Antares's trusty German Shepherd, then two soldiers who were keeping the watch on the top of the south hill, who disappear without a trace one day. The platoon goes on a full alert; it could be the untrustworthy villagers who ominously keep leaving sacrificial lamb tied to a stake nearby or it could be enemy combatants' doing. The paranoia overtakes the post. Antares, a man of reason, tries to keep everything together until another soldier gets taken right in front of an already paranoid soldier who's expecting a baby back home any day.

Then there is another unexpected development. A Taliban leader in the region, known as Sultan, wants to negotiate with Antares, assuming the French troops have their men, who also disappeared. After initial confusion, Antares OK's Sultan and his men's safe passage, despite objections from the soldiers, to the village where they ransack the place in vain, looking for their men. So after that, it is pretty clear that it wasn't Taliban nor the villagers who took the soldiers. There are some other forces that is in the works. The relationship between the village and French soldiers gets even more strained.

The villagers who are caught on crossfire, finally speak up about the place soldiers are disappearing. It is a sacred ground, known as Allah's Valley. People and animals have been disappearing if they fall asleep on the ground. It's been happening long before the soldiers came. Soldiers report strange dreams where all the missing people are sleeping in a cave. After sending an unhelpful military chaplain home, equipped with night vision goggles and thermal detection cameras and with an unlikely aliance with the Sultan, Antares tries to get to the bottom of the phenomena.

It's hard to believe the war in Afghanistan is still going on after 15 years. The Middle-East is a clusterfuck and the world is in total chaos, thanks to the destablizing effects of the whole region unequivocally caused by the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. With Neither Heaven Nor Earth, Cogitore creates an intriguing allegory of an unwinnable war.

The film is a beautifully drawn, almost religious allegory that suggests there is a higher power looking down on us. Thankfully, Cogitore doesn't take the preachy route to do so. The film works well as a thriller, while its feet are firmly planted in real situations, with some striking symbolism thrown in.

Neither Heaven Nor Earth is an unusual, elegant Afghan war thriller that gets its message across and even gives a salute to the hardworking military servicemen without any heavy political rhetoric.

Neither Heaven Nor Earth opens on Friday, August 5 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center with other cities to follow.