There’s much to enjoy and admire in Claude Schmitz’s baroque reverie on film noir The Other Laurens, a saturated, at times delirious doppelgänger double-crosser set on the French-Spanish border. With its convoluted plot, multiple duplicities, scheming step-mother and young (semi) innocent, the film plays with many of the tropes of the genre but is not, pace the director’s statement, “about the dissolution of these very narrative structures and outdated figures that inhabit it.” Instead, it toys with such figures in ways that many noirs and neo-noirs have done since the 1940s, and while its teasing irony and deliberate artificiality have a Lynchian feel at times, the film isn’t really shaking things up. That doesn’t diminish from its positive elements, especially in the first half, though the script becomes too shaggy later on and the most interesting character, the semi-innocent, plays a less interesting role than her build up would suggest. Apart from francophone territories, it’s hard to imagine The Other Laurens playing outside of festivals and specialty streaming sites.
Scruffy private dick Gabriel Laurens (Olivier Rabourdin, strong as always) barely makes ends meet furnishing proof of infidelity in divorce cases, and his dying mother (Jeannine Arnaldi) only gives him his father’s Rolex because she thinks he’s François, her favored son and Gabriel’s estranged twin. He receives a surprise visit from his niece Jade (Louise Leroy), up from Perpignan in the south of France, asking him to investigate the suspicious death of her father François. Jade is a fascinating character, young, blonde, and more than comfortable showing off a bit of skin to attain a little power; she convinces her uncle to make the journey.
On arrival he meets François’ waspish American widow Shelby (Kate Moran), not exactly in mourning and only too ready to pack up the chateau and leave France behind. There’s a mystery around everything in and around the house, from the wizened bikers supposedly protecting Jade, to a bumbling investigator duo looking for a gypsy, to the arrival of Shelby’s ex-Marine black brother Scott (Edwin Gaffney). Gabriel realizes his brother’s death may be linked to drug traffickers just across the border in Spain, but when he pokes around he’s mistaken for François, who everyone thought was killed.
Schmitz employs a predominantly fixed camera – Florian Berutti’s cinematography is a highlight – and meticulously blocks every character, creating an airless quality that underscores the unnatural, slightly exaggerated narrative. The murderous stepmother and innocent stepdaughter of course are standard noir figures, and while Jade, with her strength and ambiguity, is one of the film’s most successful elements, the script doesn’t seem certain what to do with her after an excellent night scene with her and Gabriel at a Spanish café, styled like a Mexican border joint. By this point the plot becomes too convoluted, the exaggerated side characters not quite amusing enough, and while this too can be considered a film noir trope, The Other Laurens meanders rather too far, much like the shaky helicopter Scott flies towards the end across the Tabernas desert.
Footage of the Twin Towers collapsing, recalling the day when Gabriel discovered that François had stolen his girlfriend, finds an echo of course in the brothers as twins, but it’s also meant to mark a shift to a post-post-modernism, which itself is supposed to be reflected in the film’s semi-ironic use of standard noir characters. While an interesting premise intellectually, the results don’t convey the intended subversion, which frankly are more subtly and insidiously introduced in the classic noirs of directors like Otto Preminger and André De Toth.
Visually the film has almost a Technicolor aspect, boasting rich saturated tonalities – it’s not exactly Desert Fury but what is? Apart from Berutti’s camera work, Matthieu Buffler’s production design is a highlight. This extends far beyond the way northern Spain is made to resemble the outskirts of Tijuana and is especially amusing in the horrendously tacky decorations of the chateau (exteriors were shot at the Château de Rastignac).
Director: Claude Schmitz
Screenplay: Claude Schmitz, Kostia Testut
Cast: Olivier Rabourdin, Louise Leroy, Kate Moran, Marc Barbe, Tibo Vandenborre, Edwin Gaffney, Patrice Pays, Nico Pouzen, David Vankovenberghe, Sara Miquel, Jeannine Arnaldi, Francis Soetens, Pep Linares
Producers: Jérémy Forni, Benoit Roland
Cinematography: Florian Berutti
Production designer: Matthieu Buffler
Costume designer: Alexis Beck
Editing: Marine Beaune
Music: Thomas Turine
Sound: Thomas Berliner, Aida Merghoub, François Aubinet, Franco Piscopo
Production companies: Wrong Men (Belgium), Chevaldeuxtrois (France), RTBF (Belgium), Proximus (Belgium), Voo et Be TV (Belgium)
World sales: Best Friend Forever
Venue: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight)
In French, English, Spanish
118 minutes
