"Masks" is probably one of Claude Chabrol's most accessible films, and also one of the few with a happy ending. It's slow to get going, but once it does it turns into a quite (and relatively quiet) suspenseful cat-and-mouse game. There is one truly great sequence that changed my opinion of the movie from "fair" to "good": Phillipe Noiret in the background slowly walking towards Robin Renucci and Anne Brochet, who are in the foreground of the shot, talking about things that he must not hear. This is done in one shot, without trick editing. All three leads are well-cast, but my favorite performance in "Masks" is the one by Bernadette Lafont, who is fun as a quirky masseuse. One complaint: the music score sometimes gets too loud over dialogue scenes. *** out of 4.
Review of Masks
