The latest festival in Cannes (2005 that is) was opened by the French movie "Lemming" which meant a lot for the French cinema as after all, it was directed by Dominik Moll. Moll has already been described as the French equivalent of Alfred Hitchcock and even if 4 movies are a bit too less to speak of such a comparison, the symptoms are there. Moll's previous masterpiece ("Harry") was already one of the finest pieces of French cinema you'll ever going to see and in "Lemming" Moll just goes on the path that suits him best. We are witnessing a modern couple, Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Alain (Laurent Lucas), who are building their luck. Everything's got pretty disturbed when one day Alain decides to invite his boss (Andre Dussolier). The wife's boss (Charlotte Rampling) seems at first a shameless bitch who is fed up with her husband's flirts but a deeper look, let us see that the woman is more than just a tragic figure. Coincidence or not, but all problems started when the couple found a lemming in their sink. A lemming is a sort of rat which only lives in Scandinavian countries (and we're somewhere in France) whose way of living is determined by its suicidal character. It's business as usual that people start to compare one movie to another but Moll made a great effort which can compete with the best things François Truffaut has done. The viewer is like some peeping tom who sees the high and lows in a marriage and it goes hand in hand with genius acting from both Charlotte Gainsbourg and Laurent Lucas. Now already one of the movies of 2005!
Review of Lemming
