Genealogies of a Crime
Chilean filmmaker Raoul Ruiz, who in 1968 won the Grand Prix in Locarno for his debut film Très tristes tigres, was one of his country's most prolific filmmakers during the Allende era. In 1974, he emigrated to France where he made his home both professionally and personally, and to which he has remained loyal, even since the Chilean dictatorship ended.
Ruiz's Genealogies of a Crime is a psychological thriller with a first-class cast, whose plot is based on a true story. A hundred years ago, Hermine Hellmut von Hug lived and worked as a psychoanalyist in Vienna and was a pioneer in the study of modern child psychology. She was convinced that one's 'adult' personality is fully developed and even recognisable by the age of five. Her theory proved true - perhaps more definitively than she'd hoped - when her young nephew, whom she'd pegged as a murderer early on, killed her just after coming of age.
Those are the facts. Ruiz has brought them up to date and turned them into the film's plot. His story takes place in France today. Young René (Melvil Poupaud) is on trial for murdering his aunt Jeanne (Catherine Deneuve). His lawyer Solange (also played by Deneuve) hopes to prove to the court that her client was not the perpetrator, but rather the victim of a crime. Her theory: Jeanne, the psychologist (Michel Piccoli makes an appearance as her psychoanalyst mentor) conditioned her nephew into becoming a murderer to prove her theory. But the plot thickens. René believes that Solange is the reincarnation of his aunt and Solange sees René as the reincarnation of her son, who was killed in a car
accident. It becomes more complicated when lawyer and client become lovers shortly after his acquittal… Jürgen Veile
Regie (Dir): Raoul Ruiz
Buch (Scr): Raoul Ruiz, Pascal Bonitzer
Darsteller (Cast): Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Melvil Poupaud
Länge: (Running time): 113 Minuten
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