September 08, 2006
Read My Lips
A Hitchcockian heist
DIRECTOR JACQUES AUDIARD OPENS HIS FILM, Read My lips (Sur mes lèvres), in shallow focus, as a Parisian woman (played by Emmanuelle Devos) in the frame, appears to be anxiously grappling her hearing aid headphones, whilst manning the phone lines. Her name, as we eventually learn, is Carla, and she is not only physically handicapped, but socially handicapped as well.
Because of her deafness, Carla remains thoroughly underappreciated by her fellow co-workers, who casually mock her as a pity case and burden: a helpless individual who doesn't contribute much to the company. Carla has no choice, however, but to sit passively in her office cubicle, as she lip reads their supposedly discreet conversations.
After suffering from a mini-nervous breakdown, her concerned boss suggests an assistant to help her. At first, Carla is less than flattered — this must be one of their condescending schemes to get rid of her, once and for all, she thought. But after some contemplation, Carla has run up a scheme of her own, and essentially, hires the first applicant interviewed on the spot: Paul, a handsome but roguish ex-convict (Vincent Cassel).
It is in Paul that the lonely Carla finds what she has been looking — and longing — for: a misfit with few alternatives. Carla wants to have a male sidekick in her office. Paul wants to start a new life, period.
A mutually symbiotic relationship grows between the two as they learn to empathize with one another's situation. Carla provides Paul with a job, an advance paycheck, and even an abandoned studio room (in an impending construction site) for Paul to temporarily live in. Paul, in turn, gives Carla something less tangible, but alas, more intimate — companionship and quite frankly, rejuvenated lust (in one later, rather telling, sequence, Carla takes home Paul's stained shirt — where she lives alone — and fondles it gently upon her thigh).
Audiard adds a Hitchcockian twist, as the duo's favors for one another are as sexually charged as they are violently pulsating (it is interesting to note that Audiard's 2004 follow-up, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, is Hitchcockian, in a similar respect, akin to the regard that it chronicles a sexually-frustrated gangster-turned-pianist's shenanigans).
Unlike Hitchcock, however, Audiard's characters — and his entire film — are largely amoral (consider this a contrast to Hitchcock, who slyly infused guilt and morality between the sexually violent frames). In fact, it is the duo's mutual amorality that draws the two even closer — and Audiard, it seems, is content to go along for the ride.
At the office, for example, Paul evens the score with one of Carla's bullying male colleagues by snatching commission documents right from that person's car (a simple task for Paul, who was arrested for theft).
Paul's commanding, masculine presence has given Carla more confidence and power — she no longer feels victimized at her own workplace. Whether or not the ends can justify the means is inconsequential to Carla, who seems to be occupied in a "nothin' to lose" kind of mindset.
The same sense of amorality can certainly be ascribed to Paul, as well, who intends to rob a nightclub owner, following a bloody, threatening visit from an acquaintance keen on getting the dough Paul owes him back. It is, to put it succinctly, a "I'll rob another guy-to-pay-for-my-debt" case scenario.
Carla, by now intensely drawn to Paul, feels compelled to help Paul out with this heist, which shall relieve him of his financial debt. After work, Carla spends her late evenings and nights, freezing outside, on top of a building, and channeling to the bartending Paul, via cellphone, the whereabouts — and verbal conversations, of which she can make out from lip-reading — of Merchand, the man whose money they are attempting to steal.
BY THE END OF THE FIRST ONE-THIRDS MARK, however, Audiard moves the storyline in another direction, as Paul's seedy background comes to haunt him.
One day, Carla walks into the unisex, office bathroom, only to find a bloody, battered Paul languishing upon the ground tiles, following a brutal fight with a debtor named Morel. The disheartened Carla feels compelled to help out Paul get out of this situation as soon as possible (after all, who will be protecting her in the office, if Paul leaves?). Soon enough, the two unhatch a plan: to commit a heist on a tycoon, whose nightclub Paul shall be tending for Morel.
After work, Carla spends her late evenings and nights, freezing outside, on top of a building, and channeling to the bartending Paul, via cellphone, the whereabouts — and verbal conversations, of which she can make out from lip-reading — of Merchand, the man whose money they are attempting to steal.
READ MY LIPS COULD HAVE BEEN ANOTHER BLAND ADDITION to the "one last score"-themed movies. But Audiard, it seems, does not want to settle for anything forgettable (how many heist films have ya seen that revolves around lip-reading?). Although Audiard is not ashamed of the roots of the heist genre (there are an abundant amount of eavesdropping-on-the-run sequences for the fanboys), Audiard makes it obvious to viewers that he's not just focusing on the gun, it's also pays close attention to what happens to the boy and the girl.
Psychological tension arises as the outcome of the heist becomes more uncertain. There's not only the question of whether Paul's heist will succeed (his future hinges upon the outcome), but whether Paul and Carla's relationship will prevail. There is an obvious psychological strain this heist has left upon the sleep-deprived, caffeine-dependent pair, as they spend their days working in the office and nights spying in clubs. And more importantly, are Carla and Paul just too different to make it through this mess?
Ironically, though, by the time, Read My Lips concludes, it is likely that you, the spectator, will think more about the journey than the outcome. The film's thrills are mostly dependent upon the sly, sexual energy lurking between Paul and Carla. Without the tension, there would be a plot, but ultimately, no story. And it just so happens that the story, about the romantic tension between two misfits of different ilks, is what makes Read My Lips stand head and shoulders from the other run-of-the-mill caper flicks.
