THE UNTOUCHABLE requires patience on the part of the viewer - patience to stay with this sullen, dark and clunky film to the end only to discover the wait was not worth the patience! Writer/director Benoît Jacquot had a good idea: trace the search for a biological father to a country foreign to the seeker. What results instead of a journey of self-discovery is a travelogue to India as captured by a hand held camera with what appears to be a minuscule budget.
Jeanne (Isild Le Besco) discovers on her eighteenth birthday that her mother (Bérangère Bonvoisin) conceived her on the banks of the Ganges River in India with an Indian man who remains unknown. Furious at her mother's secret and feeling the profound need to connect with her biological father, Jeanne, an actress, leaves her acting workshop to make a racy film in order to make enough money to travel to India. Once in India she searches for traces of her father without success. But the search is not without some interest for the viewer: the hand held camera that follows her through the airport and the countryside and to Benares (that city by the Ganges where the dead are cremated in elaborate fashion and the living bathe in the waters of the holy river). She gathers clues as to her father's identity from friendly strangers, but alas, the riddle remains unsolved.
Isild Le Besco is in practically every frame of this film and she indeed is an interesting actress to watch. But the lack of intelligent dialogue prevents this film from revealing motivations or character development, opting instead for a static (and rather poorly edited and scored) glance at the mysteries of India. For those interested in watching in detail the preparation of bodies for cremation and the slow act of that ritual, this is a film worth watching. For the casual viewer it is tedious. Grady Harp
Jeanne (Isild Le Besco) discovers on her eighteenth birthday that her mother (Bérangère Bonvoisin) conceived her on the banks of the Ganges River in India with an Indian man who remains unknown. Furious at her mother's secret and feeling the profound need to connect with her biological father, Jeanne, an actress, leaves her acting workshop to make a racy film in order to make enough money to travel to India. Once in India she searches for traces of her father without success. But the search is not without some interest for the viewer: the hand held camera that follows her through the airport and the countryside and to Benares (that city by the Ganges where the dead are cremated in elaborate fashion and the living bathe in the waters of the holy river). She gathers clues as to her father's identity from friendly strangers, but alas, the riddle remains unsolved.
Isild Le Besco is in practically every frame of this film and she indeed is an interesting actress to watch. But the lack of intelligent dialogue prevents this film from revealing motivations or character development, opting instead for a static (and rather poorly edited and scored) glance at the mysteries of India. For those interested in watching in detail the preparation of bodies for cremation and the slow act of that ritual, this is a film worth watching. For the casual viewer it is tedious. Grady Harp