Mathieu Amalric‘s unforgettable features have graced almost a hundred
films. His boundless range and singular charisma have made him something
of a good luck charm for auteurs. It’s a rare season without a film
featuring his voice, a velvety, hesitant tenor, how you’d imagine double
espresso to sound, or his wild, piercing eyes. You’d be forgiven for
thinking that they were black, because until watching “The Blue Room,” I
can’t remember a director having ever taken the time to get close enough
to his pupil to divine their color. This may be because the director
of “The Blue Room,” Mathieu Amalric, has the doggedness and specificity of
Sherlock Holmes whenever he steps behind a camera. No detail is wasted,
no inch of screen space misappropriated, no composition ever less than
perfect. After over a decade of sporadic directorial credits, largely
dramatic pieces with a comedic edge, best exemplified by his masterpiece
“On Tour,” Amalric has changed things up with an adaption of a novel by
Georges Simenon. It’s a detective story; a dark romantic cautionary
tale; an examination of how our memories betray us. More than anything,
however, it’s another example of Amalric’s peerless skill at finding new
and ever more sensitive ways of telling stories and displaying human
emotion. It may be the last time he ever acts for himself and he could
not have found a better and more arresting film with which to end that
partnership.
Sequence 1-Mathieu-Carax from Scout Tafoya on Vimeo.
