The Page Turner

Tight as a clenched fist ready to bloody someone's eye, intelligent, crystal clear in its intentions and actions, Denis Dercourt's terrific "The Page Turner" is wicked, perverse and anti-social in the very best sense. Like the best anti-heroes, Melanie Prouvost (a chilly, single-minded, Deborah Francois) knows what she wants, knows what/who her target is and knows how to achieve her goals. And in this case her target is the famous, though emotionally and professionally fragile classical pianist, Ariane Fouchecourt (sexy, sophisticated, sleek, tragic Catherine Frot) and by extension Ariane's family: husband Jean (Pascal Greggory) and her son, also a pianist, Laurent.Melanie is out for total annihilation and her methods are as subtle as a Cobra ingesting defenseless small birds: there is no way that her prey can escape.Director/Screenwriter Dercourt has fashioned a film that is tightly paced (a mere 94 minutes, not one ounce of fat here) and expertly acted but what is particularly impressive in its humanity and its knowing appreciation of the workings of the human mind is the reason, the impetus for Melanie's campaign against Ariane.

The music, the dialog, casting, suspense, and the pacing of the movie are all superb. I can't really write one of those amazing reviews others with more of a gift of writing can. I will just say that I enjoyed this very much - and the extra on the DVD on the making of the movie was one of the best I have seen.

Thanks to the people of France--who, by electing Nicholas Sarkozy as their president, have finally come to their senses and reversed the course of national suicide on which they were careening--I can now avail myself of that nation's fine products, which I hitherto had been boycotting. I am now free to gorge on toasted Camembert and to wash it down with my favorite Bordeaux, Mouton Cadet Rosé. My little boy Evan can now laugh at the Looney Tunes exploits of Pepe Le Peu. More significantly, I am able once again to treat myself to Gaul's outstanding film exports.Just in time, too: Writer and director Denis Dercourt's The Page Turner is a brilliant gem of filmmaking. Initially, I anticipated the prospect of watching it with some trepidation, because the poster touted a suspense movie in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol. Usually, such advertising hype bears little relation to what's actually on the screen: hack work by semi-competent directors with only the vaguest understanding of what makes a movie suspenseful, and whose pictures bear only superficial resemblance to the films of such celebrated masters of suspense. Fortunately, such is not the case here. The Page Turner is a brilliantly paced psychological flick that recalls Hitchcock's Marnie; but more than any film by Chabrol, it instead reminded me of François Truffaut's revenge thriller The Bride Wore Black. Déborah François, in just her second leading role (her excellent debut was in The Child in 2005), is icily persuasive as Mélanie Prouvost, an alluring, duplicitous femme fatale. As the credits dissolve, we find her as a young girl of eleven, practicing the piano in the comfortable bourgeois flat above her parents' butcher shop, hoping to win a coveted scholarship to a musical conservatory. Her later audition, however, is rudely interrupted when a classical-music fan rudely asks a jury member, famed pianist Ariane Fouchécourt (Catherine Frot), for an autograph. Unable to pick up where she left off, Mélanie fumbles her way through the rest of the piece. She leaves the audition fuming, returns home, and then puts away the bust of Beethoven that graced her family's upright piano, presumably forever.We next see Mélanie as an attractive young lady working as a filing clerk at a Paris law firm. Although seemingly demure, she projects intense determination in her hard-set eyes. She quickly obtains a position from her boss (Pascal Greggory) as nanny for his son at his country estate. Soon, we learn the reason why: M. Fouchécourt's wife is the same famous musician whose insensitive autograph-signing a decade earlier had crushed Mélanie's career dream of becoming a concert pianist.Mélanie insinuates herself into the family's daily life. She goes beyond her job description to help their son Tristan (Antoine Martynciow) with his piano studies and also becomes Ariane's assistant. Unlike the arrogant virtuoso of ten years before, Ariane has been shaken by an automobile accident and humbled by a case of nerves and stage fright. As if on cue, Mélanie volunteers her services as Ariane's page-turner. Because of her pianistic knowledge, she proves herself an adept, sensitive collaborator during rehearsals of the trio to which Ariane belongs, and she quickly wins the older woman's trust and friendship.Mélanie is as calculating as the title character played by Anne Baxter in All About Eve. Methodically, she exploits the situation through a series of connivances that places Ariane in a desperate state of dependence upon her charge. But, ironically, Mélanie is by now completely oblivious to the bounties of fame and fortune that she once so passionately sought; her sights are set solely on Ariane's demise.Usually, a revenge tale is meant to instill cathartic emotions, either for a hero who has undone a great evil (such as Charles Bronson in Death Wish) or against a villain who's gone too far (think Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction). However, director Dercourt does not let Mélanie off so easily. There is no catharsis offered here--only stasis.I found both François's portrayal of Mélanie and her visual depiction to be quite unsettling. We witness a young girl bearing a grudge for half her brief life, for a slight that any sane person would have gotten over in a few months, perhaps a year, and then moved on. Now, outside the context of her plot against Ariane, her life is pitifully empty, her lonesome existence preoccupied with quotidian household tasks and perfunctory phone calls to her parents. Fixated upon righting a largely imagined wrong, Mélanie has permanently, irrevocably robbed herself of any semblance of a productive and fruitful future. The pages she turns are only those in a piano score; but the hatred that motivates that activity fates her never to turn over a new page in her own life.Photography director Jérôme Peyrebrune's shots are nearly all static, objective; this tale of deceit is told almost entirely through editor François Gédigier's exactingly tight montage of images. Composer Jérôme Lemmonier's minimalist score for strings stresses Mélanie's monomaniacal obsession and further notches up the tension. The use of Schubert's "Notturno" trio and Shostakovich's agitated Second Piano Trio serves as brilliant counterpoint in foreshadowing her evil intentions: Ariane, her violinist, and her cellist are oblivious to Mélanie's ploy; but by juxtaposing the young protégé's fixed stare with the slashing strings and percussive piano beat, director Dercourt skillfully evinces her ruthless cruelty.The Page Turner demonstrates how placing one's self-esteem at the mercy of another will sabotage any hope of actually attaining it. It's a film that compels thought long after you've left the theater--and it's simultaneously the most tantalizing suspense movie I've seen since David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner. Its particular genius is that in an age when so many directors try to overwhelm the viewer with special effects and cinematic pyrotechnics, Denis Dercourt is able to send a shiver right through us by means of the forgotten arts of dramatic understatement and virtuosic montage.

The film is a slowly-gathering-dread thriller. The premise, that a child's bad experience at a judging of her pianistic abilities (and the thoughtless behavior of one judge) leads to her taking revenge, years later, on the same judge, to near-murderous effect, is ludicrous, of course. The choice of chamber music is odd, and not satisfying at all. It is revealed in the ancillary remarks that the director (some sort of musician) chose relatively unchallenging single movements by Shostakovich and Schubert so that the non-pianist actress would look authentic at the keyboard (she had had lessons in her youth). It does not work, because the actress sits rather casually at the instrument, and has zero concentration. (I think that she did not use her feet on the pedals at all.) In fact, all the segments of music-performing are bland and unconvincing. There is some entertainment value in the quirkiness of each of the characters, and it's nice to see the French countryside.

Well done French film. Excellent really, without the gratuitous sex and violence that propels so many 'so-called' psychological thrillers. This was indeed a true psych thriller. All mental. And unlike other reviewers who called it predictable, I disagree unless you just happened to 'correctly guess' the ending but the direction could have gone anyway. Until the end it was 50/50 if the main character Melanie would have a change of heart, esp because of the relationship with the young son. Nicely done. Another good French film- Roman De Gare.

A superb and unusual story about a child's revenge as an adult. The environment - the world of classical musicians - is not often used in films, and the same goes for lesbianism. The end is a real "page turner". I have used it in my French lessons with success.

El largo del cable es muy cómodo

Magnifique Catherine Frot dans un film au scénario impitoyable.

E' un Film che vidi al cinema, e contiene uno somma di stati d'animo che solo un Musicista classico concertista recepisce appieno...come il sottoscritto... Infatti il regista ha colto pienamente queste atmosfere di forte tensione emotiva, panico professionale nel confronto col pubblico, che solo un professionista del settore vive con completa partecipazione! Bravo questo regista! E nel film si consuma l'atroce vendetta della ragazza divenuta donna ma con dentro questa sete di...giustizia personale...

Good DVD

Mélanie stammt aus einer Metzgerfamilie, die Eltern unterstützen liebevoll ihren Traum, Pianistin zu werden, Dieser Traum findet bei einem Vorspielen vor einer 5köpfigen Jury mit der Pianistin Catherine Frot (Ariane Fouchécourt) als Vorsitzender jäh ein Ende. Unsensibel (oder, um beim Thema Musik zu bleiben, taktlos) lässt diese zu, dass ein Fan mit einem Autogrammwunsch diesen während des Spielens erfüllt bekommt. Irritiert bricht das junge Mädchen ab, nach der Aufforderung weiterzuspielen ist der Faden gerissen, sie verhaspelt sich und bringt ihren Vortrag nicht zu Ende. Zuhause wird die kleine Beethoven-Büste zurück in ihren Geschenkkarton verstaut, das Klavier abgeschlossen. Der Traum ist vorbei.Zehn Jahre später: Die junge Melanie (Déborah Francois, 19jährig) macht ein Praktikum in einer renomierten Anwaltskanzlei und bekommt mit,dass der Chef, Ehemann der Pianistin, für den Sohn eine Betreuumg sucht. Die bildschöne junge Frau ergreift die Gelegenheit beim Schopfe und bekommt den Job. Er bietet doch die Gelegenheit, sich an der Frau, die ihren Lebenstraum zerstört hat, zu rächen. Diese bereitet sich gerade mit einem Cellisten und einer Geigerin, mit denen sie ein Trio bildet, auf ein wichtiges Vorspielen vor einem amerikanischen Produzenten vor. Seit einem Auffahrunfall mit Fahrerflucht vor 2 Jahren ist Catherine sehr dünnhäutig, leidet an extremem Lampenfieber und braucht unbedingt als Stütze vor den Auftritten und beim Vortrag eine Seitenumblätterin, der sie absolut vertraut.Und diesbezüglich erweist sich die junge Frau als unersetzlich, wie sich später zeigt. Im rechten, das heißt im falschen Moment die Seite der Noten umgeblättert, das war es? Doch so einfach macht der Regisseur (selber Bratschist und Dozent)) es sich in seiner ersten Regiearbeit nicht.Nicht nur die Pianistin wird leiden."Das Mädchen, das die Seiten umblättert" ist ein ruhig inszenierter Film, dem man die Handschrift eines Musikers anmerkt. Der Regisseur (interessant ein halbstündiges Interview und Making Of) legt großen Wert auf Exaktheit, seine Kameraführung ist akribisch, fast millimetergenau (wie er mehrfach erwähnt). Besonders großen Wert wurde auf die Authentizität der Musikszenen gelegt. Die Stücke (Bach, Schubert, Schostakowirsch) wurden von Jérôme Lemonnier bearbeitet, das Spiel der Pianistin und ihrer Kollegen erscheint außergewöhnlich authentisch, und die Musik passt hervorragend zur Dramatik des Geschehens.Mit Déborah Francois hat der Regisseur eine engelhaft schöne junge Darstellerin gefunden, deren Reizen, einmal im knappen Bikini und ein zweites mal mit durch einen Vorhangspalt beim Anprobieren eines dékolletierten Kleides während des Einkaufs mit der Pianistin gezeigt, sich auch diese nicht entziehen kann. Drei Monate lang hat sich die junge Darstellerin auf die Rolle vorbereitet, und ich finde gerade ihr Mienenspiel zwischen freundlich lächelnd und eiskalt grausam sehr gelungen.Bezüglich des Stils des Filmes werden Vergleiche mit Chabrol gezogen (Metzger, erstarrtes Bürgertum,), wer es so sehen will, bitte.Für mich ist ein großartiges Psychodrama entstanden. Rezensenten kritisierten, die 10 jährige Vorbereitung der Rache der jungen Frau als unglaubwürdig und bemängelten, dass eine ernsthafte Musikerin, die hier ja dargestellt wird, wegen eines Patzers nie ihre erhoffte Karriere aufgeben würde. Mich störte der Ablauf nicht: Der Film läßt offen, ob die junge Frau nur eine günstige Gelegenheit beim Schopfe ergriffen oder alles geplant hat. Für letzteres spricht der Unfall der Pianistin und die gerade bestehende Notwendigkeit der Betreuung des Sohnes eher nicht.Außerdem darf ein Film das Unwahrscheinliche, aber eben nicht Unmögliche thematisieren, das macht oft den Reiz aus und die Handlung erst interessant.So unschön das Thema der Rache, die hier an Menschen über die "Missetäterin hinaus genommen wird, auch ist, der Film des Musikers und Regisseurs Denis Dercoourt ist wunderbar komponiert, grandios musikalisch unterlegt und mit zwei großartigen Darstellerinnen besetzt. Und Déborah Francois' Aussehen und ihr großartiges Minenspiel sind ein Genuss.Doc Halliday