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“I hope that, in Crossed Tracks, you will find drama, melodrama, comedy, suspense, elements of the road movie and the western, in short the genres and the kinds of cinema that I have always loved more than anything”
- Claude Lelouch
Original Title
Roman de Gare
Synopsis
Prolific and talented French director Claude Lelouch returns with an intriguing dramatic thriller that has garnered rave reviews around the globe.In the forty years since his Palme d’Or win at the Festival de Cannes for UnHomme Et UneFemme (A Man And A Woman) Lelouch’s reputation has been one of an eclectic filmmaker whose bent is towards romantic dramas. Here,however,he flexes his cinematic muscles with what is ultimately a three-handed dramatic thriller.Filled to the brim with false endings and red herrings,Lelouch’s adaptation and screenplay prove this is the work of a master Lelouch has gathered some of the best-known faces in French cinema for a taut, tense journey of suspense and second-guessing. Wealthy,best-selling crime novelist Judith Ralitzer (an austere and stylish Fanny Ardant) laments the challenges of being a successful writer,but makes no mention of her ghostwriter, Louis (the always enigmatic Dominique Pinon).Huguette (delightful newcomer Audrey Dana) is abandoned by her boyfriend at a petrol station,only to find herself intrigued by a stranger who may or may not be Ralitzer’s ghostwriter,an errant schoolteacher who has left his wife,or a pedophile serial killer who has escaped from prison. As Lelouch’s tale zigzags between these three characters, the narrative doubles back on itself time again and again,as we move from the present, to the past and the future. The film plays out like a poker game,and Lelouch keeps his cards close to his chest.The audience is never quite sure what is what and who is who,until the very last frame - surely,the mark of a great thriller.Perhaps in support of the genre,or perhaps to explore and challenge himself without the burden of his forty-year career,Lelouch helmed CrossedTracks under the pseudonym Herve Picard,only revealing himself as director when the film screened at the 2007 Festival de Cannes.
