SUR MES LEVRES (READ MY LIPS)

France, 2001, 118 minutes, Colour.
Vincent Cassel, Emmanuelle Devos.
Directed by Jacques Audiard.

Sur Mes Levres is an excellent drama. It focuses on Emmanuelle Devos (who won the Cesar for best actress) as a thirty-five-year-old loyal employee of a company. She feels she is in a rut, especially because she is deaf although she can read lips. She hires a young man, played by Vincent Cassel, who is a thief just out of jail. She hopes to make his life better. However, he drags her into his life.

The film is well written and directed by Jacques Audiard who has written a number of films and directed only a few. However, his A Self- Made Hero and The Beat That My Heart Skipped are considered classics of modern French cinema.

1. The impact of the drama? The workplace? Crime? The portrait of characters and motivation?

2. The Parisienne settings, authentic feel, the companies, the sites, the clubs, homes? The musical score?
The title, the focus on Carla, her being deaf, her skills in lip-reading, this being effective to contribute to the plot?

3. Psychological sound – Carla in her world, her work, her growing resentments, her being used? Her hiring Paul? His criminal background? Her trying to own him and change him? In relationship to Paul, his needs, the lies and the work, the plans? The detection, owing so much to Paul, his using her? The effect of their combined personalities as one personality in the crime?

4. The portrait of Carla, her age, experience, her appearance (the clothes and the mirror), her hearing aids, turning them on and off? At work, her skills, the people who mocked her? Her sense of being alone, loneliness? Her friend and the sexual relationship? The confrontation about the file? Her role in employing people and her expectations? Her seeing Paul, the reaction? Hiring him, letting him be? Helping him with the job? The closet, the apartment? Going to the party? His automatically thinking the liaison was to be sexual? Her being used to steal the file, getting the job? The record of bribes? Her participation in the crime? The relationship with Paul? Her future?

5. Paul and his background, prison? Masson? The job and the lie? Work, the closet, the apartment? His interest in Carla, the party, the sexual liaison? The bashing? The Marchand situation? The bar and the plan?

6. Carla and her help, the club, her not being used, the rape attack? On the roof, her skill in reading the lips, collaboration and deception? Yet her work being good? Tough on the supplier?

7. Masson, the gang, the plans, the robbery, the money, the after-effect? Paul and the bashing? The torture? Masson and his wife, the fight? Paul and the ticket, Carla and the money, the lies about the mistress?

8. The culmination, Masson cuffed, Paul free? The killing of Bros? Paul and Carla with the money?

9. Masson and the sub-theme, his arrest – love?
10. Carla and Paul matched, the achievement, life and their future?

11. How well did the film work as a crime drama? Relationship drama? Psychological study?