MOVIE REVIEW : A RETURN OF CHARACTER IN ‘SCENE OF THE CRIME’

The considerable pleasure in watching “Scene of the Crime” (at the Fine Arts) derives from the skill and subtlety that its cast and its director, Andre Techine, bring to this convoluted, highly atmospheric tale of fate and passion--for Techine does no special pleading for his spiky, frequently off-putting characters.

Techine succeeds admirably, however, in developing psychological credibility. As a result, we’re able to believe completely in the impact of a handsome, young escaped convict (Wadeck Stanczak) on a still-beautiful but unhappy middle-aged woman (Catherine Deneuve) living in a small town in Southwestern France.

“Scene of the Crime” provides Deneuve with one of the best roles of her career, one that demands far more of her than her fabled beauty. She in turn creates something more important than mere sympathy for the troubled woman she plays so persuasively, and that is an understanding of her. In a very real sense, “Scene of the Crime” is the story of a woman’s liberation.

Stanczak’s desperate Martin and Deneuve’s vulnerable Lili don’t meet until nearly an hour into the film, by which time we know her well. Lili is woman who never took chances when she could have and is paying the price. Instead of taking off for Paris as she wanted to, she allowed her mother (Danielle Darrieux) to talk her into marrying--for security rather than love--the glum, manipulative Maurice (Victor Lanoux), whom she has now left to run a river-side discotheque. She has recently secured custody of her 13-year-old son Thomas (Nicholas Giraudi) but, to the boy’s misery, has allowed her estranged husband to talk her into sending him to a grim parochial school.

The crux of the film is the mother-son relationship, and it is drawn in painful accuracy. Thomas is clearly bright but a poor student and a chronic liar. Yet because Lili and Thomas see their rebellious selves in each other, their love is all the more intense, although Thomas is clearly suffering from an unstable home life. The frequently absent Deneuve is well aware of her inadequacy as a parent but is incapable of doing much about it.

Thomas and Lili are revealed to themselves and to each other when they’re thrust into a danger that both recognize yet find irresistibly alluring. “Scene of the Crime” is not a thriller in the conventional sense, filled with edge-of-the-seat suspense and excitement, but rather is an imaginatively structured, highly cinematic experience in which we watch with detachment the workings of fate unravel with a swift yet oddly calm inevitability.

It’s tempting to agree with Lili’s father (Jean Bousquet) when he tells his daughter and son-in-law, “You’re both jerks, and so is your kid.” But so beautifully written (by Pascal Bonitzer, Oliver Assayas and Techine) and acted are Lili and Thomas that you recognize their reality, even if you can never much like them.

For all its confidently orchestrated twists and turns, “Scene of the Crime” is a film of character rather than plot, and in a way is a commentary on the infinite number of ways people make themselves and others miserable. Make no mistake about it, “Scene of the Crime” (Times-rated mature for adult themes) is as somber as it is impressively distinctive in its telling.

‘SCENE OF THE CRIME’

A Kino International release of a Jerry Winters/Grange Communications. Producer Alain Terzian. Director Andre Techine. Screenplay Techine, Pascal Bonitzer, Oliver Assayas. Camera Pascal Marti. Music Philippe Sasde. Art director Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko. Film editor Martine Giordano. With Catherine Deneuve, Nicholas Giraudi, Wadeck Stanczak, Danielle Darrieux, Victor Lanoux, Jean Bousquet, Claire Nebout, Jacques Nolot. In French, with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.