Genealogies Of A Crime
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: D Film: B
A long time ago, there was quackery in criminology about
who did or did not look or act like a criminal. This led to witchhunts and many innocent lives destroyed. Since that was garbage mostly debunked after
the criminal behavior of the Nazi’s own experimental quackery and genocide in
WWII, few have explored the field, though the FBI has its profiles for serial
killers and criminal behavior. Any such
studies have become more complex.
Catherine Deneuve takes on contradictory dual roles in Raoul Ruiz’s Genealogies
Of A Crime (1996) goes all out to analyze the origins of criminal behavior
and how that may or may not work.
Ruiz co-wrote the screenplay with Pascal Bonitzer explores
the situation of death and murder with some ironic comedy, not unlike Alain
Resnais’ remarkable Mon Oncle D’Amerique (1981, reviewed elsewhere on
this site) showing the actors going through multiple routine possibilities of
how early behavior develops into sadly predictable behavior. Resnais’ film was about how civilization
causes human to try and dominate each other without knowing it, among other
things, while this film plays as an interesting and often effective flipside as
to why people might kill. Though it may
show psychology in a good light initially, it is apparent that by the end of
the film, it flirts with quackery itself as we go deeper into a post-Freudian
world. After all, if it were this
predictable, there would be less murder or murders prevented.
Michel Piccoli (Contempt, Diary Of A Chambermaid,
The War Is Over, Danger: Diabolik (reviewed on the site))
co-stars with a really good cast of actors not known much outside of
France. As for Deneuve, she has come a
long way since The Twilight Girls (1957, also reviewed on this site) as
a sex object and it is only in recent years she has been taken seriously as an
actress of serious stature widely. Like
Julie Christie in Francois Truffaut’s underrated film of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit
451, Deneuve is just different enough in the two roles to be distinct,
while enough of the same to be eerie.
Ruiz is a filmmaker to be taken seriously and we look forward to more of
his work form the past and present soon.
The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is softer and more detail
problematic than expected, but the clean print and consistency of color and
many shots that still cut through this problem. Cinematographer Stephan Yuanov’s incredible work adds dimension
to an already intelligent film. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has good Pro Logic surrounds and the film was an
analog Dolby SR (Spectral Recording) release and it sounds like it. There are sadly no extras, but Genealogies
Of A Crime is a fine film that achieves something different in and out of
the Mystery genre.
- Nicholas Sheffo
