The Blue Room (2014)

THE BLUE ROOM  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Mathieu Amalric
    Mathieu Amalric, Léa Drucker, Stéphanie Cléau,
    Laurent Poitrenaux, Serge Bozon, Blutch
Mathieu Amalric has watchful eyes, maybe the most watchful eyes in film. It's no accident he wound up with the lead role in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", as a man who's paralyzed and has only one moveable body part to work with - an eye. In "The Blue Room", Amalric plays a farm equipment dealer who has an adulterous affair with the local pharmacist. Through some shifty editing, the movie slips from the two of them talking and making out in bed to a police interrogation. Apparently a crime has been committed and he's a suspect. You don't know what the crime is yet - you eventually find out - but what's interesting, besides trying to work out the key to the puzzle, is to watch Amalric's character, who claims to be innocent, fighting back at first, arguing and combative, and then gradually letting go as he realizes the trap he's in and sees that the more he struggles and resists, the tighter the noose gets around his neck. In the end, he barely speaks or moves at all, and there are only the eyes of a man caught in a trap, betrayed, defeated, watching.