Pays : USA
Genre : Thriller
Durée : 1h38
Date de sortie :
Avec : Billy Burke, Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond, Pell James
Réalisateur : Jennifer CHAMBERS LYNCH
Deux agents du FBI arrivent dans une petite ville perdue pour enquêter sur une série de meurtres. Ils retrouvent sur place trois témoins : un policier à la gâchette facile, une junkie complètement déconnectée et une petite fille de huit ans encore sous le choc. Au cours des interrogatoires, les agents découvrent rapidement que les témoins donnent chacun une version différente des faits, dissimulant manifestement une partie de la vérité.
(L'avis exprimé par les rédacteurs de cette rubrique est indépendant du travail et des choix du Jury oecuménique.)
21 mai 2008
After a critical mauling for her Boxing Helena in 1993, David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer, withdrew from films for writing novels and raising her daughter. Surveillance is her comeback, produced by David Lynch who also wrote the provocative lyrics to the final credits’ song. She has co-written it with Kent Harper who has a central role as the local police officer, Jack.
It opens like a variation of In Cold Blood with a vicious home attack at night on a family. Later, it will go into something of a Funny Games mode. Obviously Jennifer Lynch has been influenced by her father – we travel on another Lost Highway which has the alternate worlds of what the characters describe verbally and what the audience sees as actually happened. It also looks, especially towards the end, that she has also absorbed the spirit of Quentin Tarantino.
The plot has a twist at the end (which may or may not be signalled in advance although the present reviewer picked it early enough). The film takes place over one day as two FBI agents (Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman) arrive to investigate the killings. The police are resentful of the intrusion, although the chief (Michael Ironside) is co-operative as is the secretary (Caroline Aaron). They have two witnesses, a junkie and a 9 year old girl. Much of the film shows the interviews (with surveillance cameras) along with the tell-tale flashbacks to the truth. This builds an atmosphere of puzzle as to what happened, even why the witnesses are the only two present besides the police. However, all becomes clear with the twist and some truly manic and appalling violent behaviour.
Not everyone’s kind of police thriller but effective of its kind.
