La Mecanique De L´Ombre
released 2017
https://www.ink2quill.com/

“La Mecanique De L´Ombre” is a French/ Belgium political, drama, thriller film. It was directred by Thomas Kruithof who also wrote it along with Yann Gozlan, Marc Syrigas and Aurelie Valat. It stars a very large caste of talented actors that include Francois Cluzet, Denis Podalydes, Sami Bouajila, Simon Abkarian, Alba Rohrwacher, Philippe Resimont, Daniel Hanssens, Bruno Georis, Olivier Bony, Bernard Eylen bosch, Nader Farman and Alexia Depicker and many others. Hollywood translated the title to English as “The Eavesdropper”.

IMDb webpage for La Mecanique De L´Ombre

La Mecanique De L´Ombre website

“La Mecanique De L´Ombre” is the story of Duval, played by Francois Cluzet. He is a long time, unemployed man recovering from a mental breakdown and in dire need of a job. The job pays well but is creepy. In his desperation he accepts a mysterious job from a shady character named Clement, played by Denis Podalydes. Apparently a secret oragnization has hired Duval to monitor people. He does not know who his employers are or what their intentions are but he grows more and more disatisfied with what he is doing. The result of his actions will have political repercussions that uncover the machinations of a most sociopathic politician.

This is a slow paced thriller with a somber feel like in some detective films. The main character is flawed and wounded but navigates his situation with surprsing skill and does not end up eaten alive by the sharks of the story, so to speak. I enjoyed this film not only for the fine acting but for the mystery that kept me glued to my seat. I, like Duval, wanted to know who was behind this and I wanted Duval to escape the captivity of his situation in one piece.

To be honest I had never heard of this film before and saw it on a plane to Asia but I liked it. I love the style of so many foreign films because they do not use the Hollywood formulas and this is no exception. The main character is not flashy with one liners or cliches and there is nothing exaggerated about him. It´s this simplicity that reveals the real character and not some fake image and makes him relateable. So go check it out. I liked this film and I hope you will too.

FIN

written by John

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