La Chambre Bleue (aka The Blue Room) (2014)

As a suspect (Mathieu Amalric, DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) is being interrogated by the police regarding a murder or murders, we're not sure who the victim(s) is. He has a wife (Lea Drucker), a little daughter (Mona Jaffart) and a mistress (Stephanie Cleau) with a husband (Olivier Mauvezin). But slowly through flashbacks, the story is revealed. But will we ever really know the truth? Based on a novel by the French writer Georges Simenon and directed by the film's star Mathieu Amalric, this is an intriguing dark thriller that zips quickly. It's running time is 1 hour and 15 minutes, remarkably short for a modern film. But we really don't need anymore as Amalric wants enough ambiguity in the film so that we're never quite sure if what we're seeing is factual or filtered through someone's sensibility. We're never really given an answer which can be frustrating to those who want their mysteries clearly solved by the film's end but it's rich in tension and Amalric does an ace job of keeping us on edge. Curiously, Amalric shot the film in the old Academy ratio of 1.37 rather than wide screen. The film has an extremely effective underscore by Gregoire Hetzel.