Movie Review: The Pact of Silence (warning, not actual title)
Not, as I've said, the actual title. The actual title is something more along the lines of Le Pacte du Silence
Very French.
The Pact of Silence stars the only French man to appear in every single French film ever made, Gérard Depardieu.
It is about a Jesuit, at least, I want to say he's a Jesuit. It may have said that on the back of the DVD. That's right, this is a DVD-release, not theater. He's also a doctor, which would lend more credence to the assumption that he's a Jesuit. Not that all Jesuits are doctors. It's just that they've a reputation for learning, and doctors also have a reputation for learning. That, coupled with a vague (if of dubious origin) recollection that he was referred to as a Jesuit on the back of the DVD packaging, will have Gérard Depardieu playing, possibly for the first time, the role of Jesuit priest/doctor.
Gérard, whose character's name is Joachim in the film, tends to a sick Carmelite nun who seems to be sick in very mysterious circumstances. Brazil comes into the whole scheme somewhere. The nun is played by Élodie Bouchez. I know, "Who's that?" you might be asking.
I would have been, had I checked the cast listing before putting in the DVD player. Because the only French actress I know is Juliette Binoche, who previously had been the only French actress to star in every single French film ever made, but was forced to sit this one out with a knee injury incurred while playing basketball. And Sophie Marceau. She's also French, and in my limited scope of knowledge with regards to French actresses. That is, the French actresses I can remember. I have seen other French films, and they have had women in them, they just all seem to blend together into one giant generic French actress.
It sort of brings home the point about regionalism, doesn't it?
You know, when you run across people who can't discern between a Worcester accent from Vernon Hill, a Clinton accent, and a straight-up Southie accent. And at first you're shocked. Then disbelieving. Then shock comes in again, only this time it isn't as bad. It hardly qualifies as shock at that point. At which point you begin to just feel empty, and just a tiny bit lost. At any rate, this woman was a bit like this. Not lost, but just sort of unidentifiable by people from Worcester. Makes a good case for committing crimes for which you're going to be stuck in a police lineup in a place where you're the foreigner. Or possibly not. I may have to flesh this theory out a little more.
At any rate, back to the sick nun.
You get the sense something else is up with this nun, with cuts back to events in a place which looks suspiciously like a French home for juvenile delinquents, the bulk of whom are girls. And one of whom looks a lot like the sick Carmelite nun that Joachim is tending. Played by the very same girl who plays the sick nun.
Either a very low budget film or they might be twins. There weren't any pictures of the actress superimposed in a scene with herself on the back of the DVD, but you could sense them coming.
And then Joachim starts having these cutbacks to a younger version of himself. You're left to guess this last part, because the younger version doesn't have nearly as big a nose as the older version. You have to wonder if this kid sat on his living room floor looking at his older relatives thinking, "Damn, in about ten years or so I'm gonna have one honking great big schnoz. I'd better try and get the chicks while I'm young, then." In French, of course. There seems to be an awful lot of blood in these quick cutbacks to other scenes and times.
The film is a thriller. When a mobile phone makes an appearance as a device in the film, in the hands of another non-sick Carmelite nun who looks positively ecstatic to have a mobile phone after what must have been years and years of no mirror, no medicine (besides herbal), no combing her hair, and no, you're left to guess, from her reaction to being given the phone by a crafty Joachim, mobile phones, it seems to become an almost techno-thriller. When the girl who looks suspiciously like the sick nun is released from the juvenile prison system and the girl who actually is the sick Carmelite nun is bundled off to Brazil (there it is again) it takes a turn, once more, for plain old thriller.
So we're gonna stop there, and let you decide for yourself whether or not to see this. I would argue this is a better film than the forgettable film Gérard was in with Whoopi Goldberg (nothing is truly forgettable in this age of imdb.com – it was Green Card, which I didn't forget at all, and didn't even need imdb.com for, which just goes to show you there's a lot of crap that can be stored in any given person's head without any obvious point). But then I don't think I've ever seen that film.
I have seen this one, and it's in French, but subtitled, so us English-readers can follow along. Which is all part of the joke, obviously, because the translators must have neglected to mention the magic realism that pokes it's head at the end when they're in Brazil, you get your gratuitous twins (but not really) shot, and Joachim has been kicked out of the priesthood and decides he's in for a life of crime. Or at least aiding and abetting criminals.
disclaimer:
Sorry, Alex, man, we couldn't wait any longer for your epic movie review of... I think it might have been Jurassic Park. We've gone and hired our own movie reviewer now.
Come on you Spurs!
For the rest of you, have a good week.
For one specific someone, better than all the French actresses combined, Happy Birthday.