Dir : Patrice Chéreau [2009]
Persécution is an ice-cold and, on occasion, punishingly verbose Parisian drama about the rapidly dissolving love affair between a pair of thirtysomething malcontents played by Romain Duris and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Daniel (Romain Duris) is a very angry man – almost a French cousin to Johnny, the protagonist of Mike Leigh’s Naked. Falling out of the circle of conventional French society, he has become a loner working on a series of hand-to-mouth construction jobs and living at his work sites. Still he finds the time for occasional meetings with his girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whose well-paid job often keeps her away, and for get-togethers with his social circle, usually spending evenings inveighing against his friends and spilling their confidences.
Romain Duris, who first gave full rein to his dark side in The Beat That My Heart Skipped, stays in sombre mode in Patrice Chéreau’s film – in mood and theme, something of a companion piece to the director’s London-set Intimacy. Hitting a nerve of metropolitan unease, this is an intense and troubling film. Eric Neveux’s edgy, guitar-laden score and claustrophobic photography by Yves Cape (see White Material and Hadewijch ) make this one of Chéreau’s most compelling yet. —London Film Festival
