Généalogies d'un crime (1997)
Directed by Raoul Ruiz

Film Review

Généalogies d'un crime, director Raoul Ruiz's follow-up to his baroque fantasy Trois vies et une seule mort (1995), is a more conventional kind of film, in the psychological thriller line, but it bears its author's distinctive imprint - notably his trademark penchant for oneiric weirdness - throughout.  On this occasion, Ruiz takes his inspiration from the real-life story of Hermine van Hug, a Viennese psychoanalyst of the 1920s.  She was murdered by her nephew after she had subjected him to a very peculiar course of psychiatric treatment, having convinced herself that he was a potential killer.

Starting with a simple premise, Ruiz constructs one of his more fascinating explorations of the human psyche, one which challenges the existence of free will with its portrayal of characters whose fate appears to be pre-ordained, or, more precisely, determined by their genetic make-up.  As ever, the writer-director's distinctive brand of humour manifests itself at odd moments (Michel Piccoli's oddball character being a supreme example of this), and this tends to deflect our attention away from film's core themes on quite a few occasions. 

Catherine Deneuve serves the film admirably in a dual role in which she plays both the murder victim and the lawyer investigating her killing.  As ever, her charismatic presence lightens what would otherwise have been a fairly ponderous drama.  Playing the killer that Deneuve has to defend is a young protégé of Ruiz, Melvil Poupaud, whose first screen roles were in films by this idiosyncratic auteur.  Despite his young age (the actor was only 21 at the time he made this film), Poupaud exudes a gentle aura of derangement laced with deadly menace throughout - a quality he would bring to several later films, most notably Pascal Thomas's L'Heure zéro (2007) and Philippe Ramos's Fou d'amour (2015).

Admittedly, Généalogies d'un crime does tend to veer towards the overtly theatrical at times, particularly in its somewhat contrived denouement.  However, this seems to serve the premise of the film (which is basically that we are just actors in a play, our lives already written in our genes).  The film impresses in other areas, including the originality of its screenplay, the atmospheric photography and some fluid camerawork, all of which give the film an alluring dreamlike feel that is typical of Ruiz's work.

Film Synopsis

Jeanne is a middle-aged woman who belongs to the Franco-Belgian Psychoanalytic Society, which holds some very peculiar views about the nature of life.  Through her association with this strange group, she becomes convinced that her nephew René, still a child, will one day grow up to become a killer.  Fascinated by her discovery, Jeanne watches René's development and is encouraged when his homicidal characteristics begin to emerge.  The one thing she hasn't reckoned on is that René will end up by murdering her.  René engages the services of a lawyer named Solange to defend him in court.  It so happens that Solange is physically remarkably similar to Jeanne.  As she pursues her investigation, Solange cannot help being drawn to the strange young man, and before she knows it she is caught in a dangerous web of intrigue...