Richard Berry is a talented actor.Directing a movie is different matter. Not that "la Boite Noire" is totally devoid of interest.The metaphor of the "black box" is a good idea:after a wreck on the highway en route to Cherbourg such a comparison makes sense: the lapses of memory ,and the "three " personalities inside every human being (the one we know,the one we think we know,and the one we do not know ,eg the famous black box or the subconscious ) are intriguing .
But what lies beneath ,in spite of the "modern style" (that is to say special effects aplenty ),this film reminds me of the American forties films noirs,with its psychoanalysis and its childhood traumas (see Lang,Tourneur, Litvak ,Hitchcock and countless others).The ending is disappointing for it takes the easy way out :the whodunit is completely unlikely.
Marion Cotillard is as good as ever but why does she play two parts?And that's not much of a part ,anyway, it sometimes seems that she's here to fill the quota of eroticism.Also notable is Chabrol's former favorite,Michel Duchaussoy ,as the father.
But what lies beneath ,in spite of the "modern style" (that is to say special effects aplenty ),this film reminds me of the American forties films noirs,with its psychoanalysis and its childhood traumas (see Lang,Tourneur, Litvak ,Hitchcock and countless others).The ending is disappointing for it takes the easy way out :the whodunit is completely unlikely.
Marion Cotillard is as good as ever but why does she play two parts?And that's not much of a part ,anyway, it sometimes seems that she's here to fill the quota of eroticism.Also notable is Chabrol's former favorite,Michel Duchaussoy ,as the father.