In French. 118 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long … I loved Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon so I thought I’d try another of his movies, but this was no good and it’s certainly not a “thriller” … I didn’t know about the Paris massacre of 1961 … but I don’t know why the guy wouldn’t straight-up tell his beautiful wife (Juliette Binoche) the truth about his past … why would he feel that guilty about it?!? I did like the video-in-a-video gimmick where you couldn’t tell if you were watching reality or a taped version, you know, toying with the audience… with the final long shot the ultimate gimmick.

Andrew Sarris got it right when he wrote: “Too much of the plot's machinery turns out to be a metaphorical mechanism by which to pin the tail of colonial guilt on Georges and the rest of us smug bourgeois donkeys.”