THE CONFESSIONAL (56)

Directed by: Robert Lepage

Starring: Lothaire Bluteau, Patrick Goyette, Kristin Scott Thomas

The Pitch: A young man and his adoptive brother try to solve the mystery of the latter's parentage, a secret dating back to 1952 when their Quebec town was being used by Hitchcock as a location for I CONFESS.

Theo Sez: Stylish and cleverly-structured, the transitions between past and present increasingly imaginative as the film goes on (personal favourite : the little girl, auditioning in 1952, who picks up her script and starts to read what becomes a newsflash on Tiananmen Square in 1989) ; unfortunately someone forgot to bring the characters, leaving us only with this permanently whiny hero and his opaque, vaguely screwed-up half-brother. It's an exceptionally smooth ride, and visually it's first-rate - not just flashy but alive with the possibilities of viewing, literally and metaphorically, from a different angle (seen from above, a seedy sauna becomes a maze of corridors, swarming with human labrats) ; yet it disappears quickly from memory, and it doesn't have the richness of something like TOTO LE HEROS, that feeling of past and present coalescing into a greater whole. Perhaps it's just too cerebral, not least in the final twist which - when you think about it - fits all the pieces together and opens up a whole landscape of suggested conflicts and motivations ; but you have to think about it.