Pretentious, prurient thriller from the great Claire Denis. She wants us to think about the place where power and sexual depravity intersect. Alas, her fragmented narrative, involving a wild child (Lola Creton), a mistress (Chiara Mastroianni) and a vengeful, baffled sea captain (Vincent Lindon), can't dig beneath the stereotypes.
In her 1999 masterpiece, Beau Travail, Denis explored the bizarre and bleak world of men in uniform. Here, the captain's relationships with his old buddies is downright sentimental (these guys understand loyalty, unlike the neurotic city-dwellers). The visuals are atmospheric (cinematographer Agnes Godard knows how to make grubbiness epic), but the ending, unlike the climax of Polanski's Chinatown, doesn't touch us at all.
