Chrysalis (I) (2007) User Reviews

Lots of style, little substance

[Siamois · 5/10 · 27 March 2009]

There are many ingredients of the cyberpunk genre in this film, which is why I was looking forward to see it. Unfortunately, it is a weird mix and while Leclerq obviously has a flair for aesthetics, he would have been better off letting someone else write the script.

Albert Dupontel, better known as an actor and director of comedies, continues his recent transition to more "heroic" roles. Here, he has amazing presence and physicality playing David Hoffmann, a hard-nosed cop. Unfortunately, the script is so bad, the direction so poor, that sometimes you just can't believe his lines or behavior.

His character is not the only one lacking development and substance. Everyone surrounding him looks even more like a walking cliché. Marie Guillard lacks credibility as Becker, Hoffman's pretty rookie partner. Veteran actor Marthe Keller plays a doctor with an agenda and recites her uninspiring lines without conviction. Alain Figlarz is intensely physical as the movie's main goon but as a villain, again the script doesn't sell him very well. There are many other characters we equally do not care about. Apparently, in the future, every woman in the police department will be a pretty girl who looks unfit for the job.

So, if the plot is terrible, the characters uninteresting and their lines ridiculous, why exactly does it deserve a 5 rating? Well for one, there are martial arts scene in the pure tradition of Bourne. the context in which they happen is silly but their execution is actually flawless and they are pulse-pounding. Kudos to Dupontel here. He delivers big. The rendition of a Paris in the not-so-distant future is also beautiful. It's mostly interiors (few outside shots) but you do get a nice feel of what could realistically be the future. It's extremely stylish and European. Speaking of which, the photography here is very good.

What you're left with is a movie that combines elements of techno-thriller, noir and sci-fi and takes itself very seriously. Unfortunately, it's not done well enough. When your scenario lacks credibility, a good way to save it is by injecting something else. Irony, humor or romance. But Chrysalis never does that. And the action is sparse enough that we notice it's flaws.

I hope Leclerq will pursue his career but I'd rather he directs and let someone write.

Stylish action sci-fi

[dug278 · 6/10 · 26 January 2009]

This is a cross between sci-fi,Philip K. Dick style,hard edged cop thriller,and some jiu jitsu martial arts thrown in as well.It is really brutal at times,but not gratuitous.The lighting is cold throughout,but it's never really dark.The colour seems washed out,and added to the lighting it's almost black and white at times.But I really liked the style.Despite being set in Paris,almost every scene is somewhat claustrophobic.There is rarely a view of the Eiffel Tower,and very few,if any,crowd scenes.Most scenes are in the police staion,underground,science lab,or apartment blocks.

This is an intense psychological film that demands your attention,and you will be rewarded if you stick with it.

Light Snack Pretending To Be Three Course Meal

[cashiersducinemart · 4/10 · 13 September 2007]

A by-the-numbers cop movie with sci-fi elements, this French policier felt very tired than being the fresh, slick thriller it so wanted to be. Loud gunshots, car crashes and fist fights are utilized as an attempt to break up the monotony of the script by Leclerq, Nicolas Peufaillit, Franck Philippon , and Aude Py (yes, it took four people to write this film when it felt like one person could have written it in their sleep).

Plugging into the generic lead role this time out are Albert Dupontel as David Hoffman, the take-no-prisoners cop who'd rather get the job done right than follow procedure. Hoffman looses not only his partner in the opening gun battle but his wife as well. Now it's personal…times deux. He's partnered with the well-meaning newbie Marie Becker (Marie Guillard) and the two work to find the truth behind a series of deaths. Of course, these murders are ultimately tied back to the fateful opening gunfight and to the plot of Doctor Brugen (Marthe Keller) helping her daughter regain her memories after a tragic auto accident.

The large, gleaming neon sign points out the insidious mucky-muck plot device of a terrible weapon that's fallen into the wrong hands. Think "Project Janus" of JUDGE DREDD or any other number of government-funded weapons that have gone awry. This time it's a set of head gear that can download, erase, or implant memories into a subject. As government stooge Patrick Bachau (producer of CHRYSALIS) explains to his niece, Marie, the Chrysalis machine could be used to implant the memory of a fervent jihadist into innocent minds to create an army of terror killers. Likewise, a powerful business man could go on living forever by putting his mind into a younger body. If you just thought of FREEJACK, you're not alone.

The only scene missing from CHRYSALIS is the rewriting of Hoffman's memories and his struggle to maintain his identity. (That might not be in the film but the scene of him handing over his gun and his badge is!) Rather, Hoffman's mind is wiped. This may actually be a good thing as it removes the demons of his haunted past and allows Maria the chance to be the weak protagonist for a while. Things shake out just as you know they will. There's even a "the media will love this" scene with Guillard and Bachau at the end.

CHRYSALIS isn't a bad film so much as it's misleading. It's a light snack that pretends to be a three course meal.

Am I blue...

[rooprect · 11 November 2014]

This one of the bluest movies I've ever seen. You thought "Sleepy Hollow" was blue? You thought Soderbergh's "Solaris" was blue? Well hang on to your bonnet because this movie makes them look like "The Wizard of Oz". If you're looking for a blue movie then look no further than "Chrysalis".

Set in a tense future, Paris in the year 2025, this film is very stylish and gritty. The director sought to create a future vision that's not quite dystopian yet definitely not full of rainbows & unicorns. It is a very claustrophobic, psychological story that progresses on 2 levels. The first level is the straightforward action/thriller/scifi part: a rogue Paris cop is hunting down the killer who ruined his life. The 2nd level is a very human (yet equally tense) story about a woman who is reconnecting with her daughter after a terrible accident which caused the girl to have amnesia. Confounding at first, it is interesting to see how these two seemingly distant stories come together.

A well-written story and good script give all the actors a chance to shine as each plays the role of a deeply complex character. We have the main hero, a tough guy of few words, who is coming to grips with his ruined life as well as the realization of what a monster he has become. His female partner is a rookie, entering the story as a naïve kid who got the job only because her uncle is a big honcho, but ultimately she develops a forceful personality of her own. The mother in the 2nd story is very cryptic, and you don't know what drives her, or if she's a good person or bad person, until the end. And the daughter whose confused & innocent portrayal of a person struggling to regain her identity had me riveted in every scene.

So, yes, you could approach this as a straightforward scifi-action-crime-thriller, or you could also see it as a story of people finding--or rather, choosing--whom they want to be. And there you have it, all wrapped up in a nice, stylish ribbon. A blue ribbon of course.

Not very good nor original

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 30 April 2009]

Scifi action film about a cop investigating murders tied to the death of his partner. All roads lead to a weird institute where weird experiments involving memory are taking place.

Its a been there and done that sort of a film, especially if you watch any number of dystopian scifi films. What strikes me as kind of sad was that the film often feels like its standing in front of you waving at you in a pathetic attempt to make you think you haven't seen this before. The film's case cover mentions that the action sequences were from the person responsible for the action in the Bourne films, and that maybe the case but the director doesn't shoot it with any sense of Bourne's style and the result is further boredom.

Not worth your time.

Worth the time to see - if it's your cup'a tea

[bilgerat99 · 7/10 · 18 December 2010]

This film, while not Oscar material, is a very solid sci-fi/crime thriller. It may seem to weaken itself slightly because it never really sets foot solidly in either camp but instead treads the line carefully between a quite plausible sci-fi plot and a crime/action story. Nonetheless, it is several cuts above the normal indy fare and rises even above some of Hollywood's efforts.

It has fine acting, outstanding sets, great action sequences and editing. The dualistic nature of the plot is well conceived and revealed sparingly; there are some nice twists and surprises along the route and it never bogs down. (Of course, for myself, I would have been content spending the entire 94 minutes happily watching only Mélanie Thierry's face but that's just me... ;-)

Seriously, give it a spin - you won't consider it a wasted 90 minutes if you like crime/sci-fi and great art direction in an intimate setting without loads of CGI; just be aware it's not a major undertaking like the Terminator or Matrix series - but if you don't need quite that much excitement to be entertained - it's very satisfying .

Does anyone care about these people?

[tanweth · 4/10 · 3 November 2008]

This could have been an outstanding science fiction/crime thriller. But there was simply no passion here. Everyone seemed dispassionate about any and every thing that was happening or had happened or toward each other. Editing was another problem. There were several disconnects and very little seemed to add or subtract from the story. Even by the time everything comes together, there was still no desire to care about any of these characters or the idea behind the movie.

In short, the movie came across like a dry reenactment of a crime with far reaching repercussions. Remember how interesting U.S. History was in High School? Well, there you go.

Great story. Positively wooden acting. But by the end of the film, who cares? Actually, this would have made for an excellent Japanese anime. At least they would have gotten you to care about these people.

French cinema is back at the front

[Ismaninb · 7/10 · 9 May 2009]

All connoisseurs and other snobs know that between 1960 and 1980 French cinema was miles ahead of Hollywood. Directors like Melville knew that they could not compete on special effects etcetera because of the smaller budgets. They took the only possible course: do what Hollywood doesn't dare to do. Chrysalis breaks the Hollywood conventions as well and still stands firm in the French tradition. The pale colours remind us of classics like Le Samourai; the Hoffmann character could have been played by Alain Delon in his heydays. Dialogues are minimalistic and therefor highly effective. The two story lines first are independent and gradually merge. Montage between the two is brilliant; every scene makes you longing for the next one. Only halfway the meaning of the opening scene is partly revealed; only near the end you will understand it fully. So some patience and a bigger attention span than average is demanded - and rewarded. The movie has two weak points. First of all there is the plot. Probably I am not fair, but I find it hard to accept the plots of Robocop and Terminator as well. Never will movies like that get more than 8 stars. Second I find the Hoffmann character not that convincing anymore after his "accident". Don't take my criticism too hard. Deviating from the Hollywood norm involves risks so should be praised. Chrysalis is highly entertaining and intriguing, unless you prefer the standard, brainless and predictable stuff. And never I have seen such cold scenery.

Let's hope Julien Leclercq STOP directing movies like this.

[jabeone · 2/10 · 29 June 2009]

Watching this movie to the end was such a real torture for multiple reasons that I had to share about my pain and frustration from this horrible experience. First, the story is so empty, dull and finally stupid that it could have been told in 15 minutes max. But much worst is the directing style that is terribly boring. It starts nicely visually like for an advertising for any high end contemporary luxury product; as if it was the only intention of the director, to prove that he could do it nicely (with tons of cash). But having to watch this commercial for more than 30 secs but a full hour and a half becomes very painful after just 15 minutes. The directing is terribly boring with endless very useless slow camera moves on cold architecture, useless moving cars, actors walking in or out for 20 secs or elevators elevating for a good 20 or 30 secs. What the hell?!? Mixed with fistfights with no visual interest, a very dumb and not plausible shooting while running scene where one cannot shoot another from 2 meters, and endless slow paced and useless scenes that should have been cut out or not even be shot to start with. Very soon, it all appears very pretentious. Because when they finally talk, foreigners might not hear it but the tone is often horribly false, especially with the German accent of the blond actress. Her tone is SO wrong. It becomes a torture like with very bad amateur karaoke singers. I do not understand how a director cannot hear it when editing. like a musician without hears. Dupontel who I usually always love despite very strange (bad) career choices has no lines here and is only one color tinted, making his character totally dull and boring after 20 minutes. Melanie Thierry is not bad but a bit transparent here despite extraordinary facial features. No characters has any interesting point besides the villain just because he remains a bit mysterious but we'll quickly discover that besides his strange eastern accent he has nothing more to deliver than pure brute stupid violence. Sublime former French model Estelle Lefébure took an honorable chance to show some of her unknown acting talents and truly did not fall in many traps and delivers as much emotion as the script allows her to; maybe even a bit more. But of course there was not much to deliver from the script and to remember particularly to start with. Overall I had to push "2x" faster button many many (too many) times to not fall asleep for a third time. This movie can only be an excellent "berceuse", something to go to sleep in 10-15 minutes if you don't mind having to start over the next day to this where it goes. And there is no spoil here in telling that it leads NOWHERE. Good Luck. pass your way. PS: On this same SciFi topic of memory manipulation, I just watched Paycheck from P.K. Dick and John Woo and that was way much better even if really not good neither. Mandchurian Candidate seems to keep staying one good reference.

The Trails of Hoffman

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 15 January 2014]

Science fiction is not a genre in which French cinema dabbles to any great extent although it does have a fine tradition of horreur as in Les Diaboliques and Les Jeux sans visage which are distant relatives of Chrysalis as both deal with death in one form or another; a death that isn't really a death on the one hand and the idea of 'rebuilding' broken bodies on the other. Here we have parallel stories. Futuristic (2020) cop David Hoffman, sees both his wife and his female partner killed in front of him and sets out to nail the two brothers responsible. At the same time a highly successful female surgeon is driving the car is which her daughter is killed and is bent on reviving her in her state-of-the- art clinic. Oh, I almost forgot, there's a machine involved and it's capable of erasing people's memories of if this were a James Bond movie SMERSH or SCEPTRE or both would be after it but we have to be content with smaller fry. There are two exceptional fist-fights (for which Dupontel insisted on doing his own fighting) of the kind that after ninety seconds tops one or both of the fighters would be dead and/or comatose but instead, natch, they keep at it for four or five minutes. Watchable but Dupontel has done far better stuff in this line, like The prey.

dry and confusing

[dromasca · 5/10 · 13 December 2009]

I have seen at a week distance two films describing Paris in the 2020s - 'La Jetee' by Chris Marker and 'Chrysalis'. They were made at more than four decades distance in time, and yet they have many similar lines bringing up troubling visions of the future of the vary familiar and warm city that is Paris.

Same as 'La Jetee', 'Chrysalis' is a very stylish film, with striking visuals. All is filmed in blue metallic light, which creates a artificial, cold, robotic atmosphere for a sci-fi and cop story which is a combination of some older (tough cop with young female partner as in 'Dernier domicile connu') and newer themes (mind control, human traffic). The principal problem is that the story is confusing, and even when the two parallel threads converged not all the details come clear.

Some good acting (especially Albert Dupontel in the lead role) and well filmed fights choreography cannot save the film, which remains a too dry exercise, with too much style and too little substance, and failing to create emotion.

Very interesting movie

[erik-687 · 8/10 · 3 September 2009]

This is a stylish french sci-fi movie. After a murder, a policemen has his memory where his wife gets killed. Unfortunately another investigation leads him to the same killer. Another parallel story is one of a young women you is locked in a hospital and gets some odd treatment to get some memory erased.

The story has some rough edges although the global plot is quite interesting. Most actors do a great job, although some are a little too frenchy. The most interesting part of the movie is the directions and all details. Fighting scenes are gripping, and the futuristic details give a great sense of realism. You really buy his 2025 Paris, the futuristic operations at the hospital.

Despite details of the story, this movie is very entertaining and has style.

Very well made and definitely worth taking a chance on, but watch it with subtitles, the dubbing is terrible.

[garyvanhorn · 7/10 · 12 January 2011]

OK, just so everyone knows it's a foreign film, French to be exact, and it is best watched in subtitles because the dubbing is terribad. If you can't stand to read your movie don't bother. Chrysalis is a sci-fi action thriller that pits an angry, vengeance driven Europol cop against a former Bulgarian special agent for control over the technology to create, implant, and erase human memories. The fight scenes are very well done and I really liked the "hard" fighting style that was employed rather than the "soft" martial arts so often seen in movies. The tech was very well done and low key, something I appreciated, too often sci-fi movies favor gadgets over plot. I liked the story but would have liked to have seen a bit more character development. All said I enjoyed the movie and I am glad I saw it.

A complete utter mess that makes little to NO SENSE!

[TheEmulator23 · 2/10 · 29 March 2009]

This is a sloppy piece of whatever it's supposed to be. It's terrible in so many ways it's embarrassing to all involved. The script is utter nonsense that won't make a lick of sense either. I don't know who OK'd this script or how exactly it was even sold. I can see the pitch saying, here is the script I doesn't make sense now but we will work on it in post. Yeah it didn't happen. Please do not bother this terrible drivel. Worse than anything is that it actually looks pretty decent, but it just goes to show if you don't have a decent script that makes at least A LITTLE bit of sense it won't matter. That acting is wooden & somebody thought they were making something good, because it seems like there was some care in the making of it. I understand just about all movies, but you won't have a clue what is actually happening until at least 45 minutes to an hour in, if you even make that far which most of you won't.

No Butterfly

[YohjiArmstrong · 21 February 2012]

CHRYSALIS is that rarest of things: a French SF film. It's about a cop in the near future who hunts for the man who killed his partner cum lover only to stumble across a medical conspiracy. It's a glossy but ultimately unrewarding thriller, which feels longer than its short 90 minute running time for the simple reason that the characters are opaque and the plot predictable (I guessed the end twist around the halfway mark). Unsurprisingly, the richest and most bourgeois white character is the villain. The shiny aesthetic, minimal dialogue, stock characters and brutal fights are effective in their own genre fashion but the absence of heart, humour and humanity leaves it feeling empty. The cast is a fabulous collection of handsome skinhead coppers, sleekly pale women and brutish ape-like Eastern European criminals but they all have too little to do. Watching the documentary features makes the failure understandable: the director was so intent on creating complex, highly technical shots that he simply paid no attention to the writing.

Dark sci-fi

[ocosis · 7/10 · 1 December 2020]

Part science fiction, part cop revenge flick. With some intense and brutal close quarter martial arts (done extremely well) Chrysalis is a solid sci-fi cop noir. The direction is sharp and the film looks good. The acting is perfect. It's really a film unto itself and has a great stylized sheen. Nicely done.

An enjoyable movie, almost live action anime

[david-parkes7 · 7/10 · 23 May 2011]

This movie started out by setting up the viewer nicely for the following 90 minutes, some very good acting and some good scripting. not wanting to put any spoilers within this review the film does grip you till the end, with a nice conclusion.

The Science fiction for the most part actually seemed not that far in the future which is always nice as having to suspend belief can sometimes be tiresome. The set pieces seemed to be well directed and the fight scenes especially the one on one between "David" and "Nicolov" were gritty/bloody and very realistic, not clean martial art which we've seen in so many movies.

The last lines said by "david" to "maria" seemed perfect and totally within the character that has been created. Having an actor like Patrick Bauchau in any movie would almost guarantee me watching, Albert Dupontel is very good as the damaged police officer "david"

That said the movie did feel rushed in the last 15 minutes. It did seem that the director spent to much time on the first 3/4 of the movie and tried to speed it up when all the threads of the story were weaved together.

Overall and enjoyable movie subtle sci-fi with a good script and good action. An excellent cast.

If you don't understand french then watch a version with English subtitles as the dub is not good.

If you like you sci-fi on the not mainstream side and you like to be able to think a little about a story then try this.

ORIGINAL

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 17 April 2019]

It seems in the not to distant future there won't be much lighting so everything will appear to be made of stainless steel. The movie combines a Dirty Harry wannabe with the eye clamps of "Clockwork Orange" and the Neural Neutralizer from Star Trek. The story runs for a long time with a plot and subplot that seem very disconnected, annoyingly so, but hey they are French.

I was confused by one translation which went something like "I was summoned to the investigation, tomorrow." Apparently they used some type of word for word translation. The main character was written rather poorly. He was the tough cop we had to identify with, but instead he got kick around a lot, had many character flaws, and was not likable. The plot took priority over any kind of significant character development to the point it took away from the movie (not as bad as 2001). I won't say a word about the plot, as it is in part a mystery, and to say anything would spoil it.

The movie is original and worth a peek.

Let's hope Julien Leclercq gets to make many more of these.

[demicore · 8/10 · 5 November 2007]

I knew very little from this movie before seeing it and was very pleasantly surprised. The actors and the direction are great, while the art direction is stunning. There are two disappointing cases of main characters having the stupid but apart from that the scenario is pretty solid too.

I'm pretty disappointed not to be hearing about this movie a little more because it definitely deserves more recognition than it is getting now.

Overall this movie is a great blend of drama and awesome action scenes while also having a fair bit of humor, and I would heartily recommend it to any movie-goer. It's also nice to see Guy Lecluyse getting some scenes for those who've heard about him, I thought he was great in that role.

Languid, blue-tinged Sci-fi Crime thriller

[Rabh17 · 8/10 · 18 July 2009]

This movie comes out of France, with French sensibilities, a steady camera style and some solid emotional acting. The story is set a little bit in the future with some future tech embedded into the details of the visuals in such a way that the future tech is just there, utilized and passed on without remarks or fanfare.

Exactly WHAT the crime is can be somewhat obscure and will take some replaying of the dialogue to piece together, but the story has it's own cohesive logic. Why the director made everything BLUE, I don't understand, though I'll ride with it. But be sure that this future is NOT dystopian-- it's just. . .Blue.

If you watch it in English, you will notice times when the lips and the dialogue don't quite synch and that can be annoying, although I wager that French speaking viewers will have a more rewarding time of it. Still. . .This movie is thoughtful and different. And thank GOD there's no Shaky Camera here. Also the usual Hollywood Non-Stop Running, Car-chase, Helicopter Raging Gun-battles are missing here-- again because of the different sensibilities. But that makes you pay more attention to the Story about the Crime.

Oddly enough, I rate this Sci-Fi movie as "Girlfriend Friendly" for a quiet Saturday Night. Have some Cheesesteaks and Fries ready to go with it.

Great Action Adventure Movie....from France?

[jburtonprod · 9/10 · 21 March 2009]

This movie rocks. It is best to watch it in French with subtitles as the voice artists for the English language version ham it up a bit. This is an excellently directed, hard hitting and atmospheric sci-fi cop movie. Set I'm guessing about twenty years in the future. Teenage girls are being murdered and disappearing. The movie opens on back to back, shock you into the movie scenes, that set up the parallel stories that will be played out.

The cast is great. Albert Dupontel as David Hoffman is a total bad ass, grim and tough as hell. There seems to be an ocean of emotion behind his stoic tough facade. Marthe Keller is also a stand out. Just an incredible actress to watch. None of the relationships in this movie are predicable, which makes it very intriguing and though all these characters are familiar to this genre, all of them come off as totally believable people. This is something that lacks in most American versions of the genre.

The fight scenes rock. Simple staging no wire work. It's just tough sons of bitches beating the crap out of each other in some brutal future martial art. There are twists and great scenes throughout. And though I've watched it twice and am still not sure of exactly all that happened, I don't care. I'm going to buy the DVD. Julien Leclercq is a Director and Writer to watch. I hope to see more from him.

And a word of advice to the Director. Don't move to Hollywood. They would just ruin you. Look what happened to John Woo.

Great Movie.

Peace.

A fine work and hints of great things to come from J.L.

[Rascalman7 · 19 May 2008]

Julien Leclercq.....how do I buy a copy of this wonderful film on DVD in the USA??? I saw your film, Chrysalis, at AFI/Dallas. I admire it tremendously for so many aspects of the work. I am a novice film maker and wish to study all that you have incorporated into the creation of this project. It is clearly a construction of what you appreciate so much about American style action films. But you have achieved all this and even more in this effort. And so very nicely hidden is this process, so as not to be too obvious. Beautiful, stylized, intriguing, gripping. The characters are fully developed and acted to a fine manner. Oh, but for a better ending...Chrysalis would be an instant cult classic and must have for all lovers of this genre, as well as many others. I would give it: A+ Directing, A+ Cinematography, A Ensemble Acting, A Sound Design, A+ Editing, C+ Script, (but only for the ending). In all I would hope to accomplish but a very small fraction of what you have created in this fine and marvelous effort. Most respectful congratulations to you. I will look forward to seeing many more Julien Leclercq films to come. (If I am to be allowed to buy them in the USA!) Regrds, JB

Hyper-stylish French sci fi police thriller

[robert-temple-1 · 9/10 · 29 October 2012]

French director Julien Leclercq, who also co-scripted this film set in 'the near future', has produced a marvel of style and menace in this tale riddled with ambiguities. There are identical twins, people who switch identities, people who forget entirely who they are, others who remember being someone else, and general questions of identity. The film is a tease, and is extremely thought-provoking. The colour film stock has been flashed, so that it is very faded, and the scenes have then been tinted blue by shooting through a blue lens, which sometimes is removed when focusing on the people. In fact, there seem to be several tones and shades, and whether this was done while shooting or in the film processing I do not know. At times, it is nearly 'blanc et noir', as the French call black and white, or should I say 'bleu et noir'. The art direction is superb. Some of the acting is intentionally stylized, with the secret villains remaining aloof, calculating, and showing hypocritical and unconvincing warmth to the people they are manipulating in the story. The Bulgarian villain is convincingly psychopathic, and really, he is the best example I have seen why Bulgarians should be restricted in their right to travel within the EU. We just don't want to run into him, or his brother! There are some grisly but mind-boggling scenes of intense individual combat and martial arts at close quarters in confined spaces here, and I cannot imagine how many weeks or months it must have taken to rehearse all those moves. The film has some deeply disturbing aspects of technological innovation as applied to human mind manipulation, and there are numerous stressful scenes which sensitive souls would do well not to watch. If you have a low stress level, do not buy this DVD, as you really will not be able to sleep afterwards. But for those who can tough it out, it is well worth watching, and studying carefully. Leclercq is above all a master stylist, and perhaps he should be a designer. There are several excellent performances in this film, and it does not matter that the dialogue is rudimentary, for the silences and ambiguities are all the more effective as a result of the lack of verbal exposition. As is usual in all modern French thrillers, a sense of deep paranoia about the French state pervades the tale, and the security services are the ultimate villains. And now that the French state is run by what they call 'the Bermuda Triangle' (Hollande and his two feuding women), the fact that people disappear and re-emerge, memories vanish into black holes and are then summoned forth again, seems part of the surreal political landscape of today, as if it had been anticipated by Leclercq in 2007, and premonitorily evoked. Instead of the women and girls being called Manon and Clemence as in this film, one expects them to be called Segolène and Valérie. Or would that be too much for the nerves to bear? And at the controls of the new technology in this film is the eerie Marthe Keller, who plays a German immigrant to France, thus reminding us of 1940 and all those charming Germans who came to France at that time, with similar intentions to make people disappear. The warnings about mind control implicit in this film should be taken seriously. Mind control projects have been going on for half a century or more, and they only get worse, so watch and learn.

And this is why we hate the French

[yeodawg · 21 October 2011]

The opening scene of CHRYSILAS has better shoot out than anything you've scene in black hawk down or 3000 miles to Graceland. The camera angels especially the ones in the crack house will be stolen and copied b every film student for years to come. Okay where do we begin our lead hero loses his partner in a botched human trafficking raid, Leaving him the last hard boiled burned out white officer in a federal European police unit filled with multi-cultural skin heads. He Bogart's some guys and gets from one heavy-handed situation after another to find his partner killers. Although he considers himself smarter than the average bear, he's prone to the pits and pratfalls of every other human being. It was a great film glad I watched.

Very sharp, visually stunning, subtly stylized futuristic Crime Thriller... Blu-ray: Beautiful A:9 V:10

[lathe-of-heaven · 8/10 · 14 March 2014]

This movie was quite entertaining. The visuals and look of the film were quite nice...

When the French get it right, NO ONE can do a film like this better (1982's 'DIVA' anyone...?) What made this film SO very effective was not only it's technical brilliance, excellent writing and story line, but also that the set design was amazing. Any Sci Fi elements were very subtle and not overwhelming. It comes across more as a SLIGHTLY futuristic Crime Thriller. Nothing overt or heavy handed; this is definitely NO STAR TREK or STAR WARS (although I very much DO appreciate those kinds of 'heavier' Sci Fi too...) Whenever Sci Fi elements are used, they are very understated and well integrated into the overall design and concept of the story.

I REALLY liked the tone and look of this film; and I'm NOT one much really for French films per se : ) Most of them, especially older Classic ones, I find deliberately vague and pretentious for the most part. But this one had EVERYTHING nicely and tightly arranged and was put together in such a way so that after seeing it, you come away feeling that you just watched a DAMN good film!

I also very much enjoyed the sound used in the movie. Nice touches in the background, especially the songs used during the sequences showing the various floors of the medical facility and during the virtual operation were quite effective.

There really isn't much more to add except that if you don't mind reading subtitles and you like a very clever, well thought out and intriguing Crime Thriller, and you appreciate nice set design, then you should by all means find this film very fun and entertaining.