Red Lights (Feux Rouges, 2004) Movie
Oh, how I pity the French bourgeoisie. They appear to exist solely to hang out in their opulent Parisian apartments, have affairs with one another’s wives, suffer from the most heinous ennui, and, every now and then, venture into another genre where, like vultures around a wounded camel, the forces of natural justice begin to circle, waiting for the precise ironic and cruel moment to strike.
This one has additional cred since it’s based on a piece by Georges Simenon, the maestro of French suspense, but there’s also a lot of Hitchcock, Chabrol, and Lang in it. The set-up for Red Lights is classic. Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) is a family man, an insurance worker married to corporate lawyer Hélène (Carole Bouquet); he’s looking forward to their drive to Bourdeaux to pick up their two children, but he’s also coming apart at the seams, especially when his wife is late to their after-work meeting.
Her work place valued her so highly that a mission was sent to persuade her to return as soon as possible following the birth of their children. As they travel towards the countryside in the afternoon, Antoine slips clandestine beverages into his stomach while pensively waiting.
The sun is setting, the roads are congested due to the July 4th holiday, and an escaped prisoner has been reported on the radio, with police barricades seeking for him causing gridlock. Antoine’s simmering, alcohol-tinged anger continues to bubble up, upsetting Hélène to the point that, when he stops for a drink at a lonely roadside tavern outside of Tours, he makes a second stop. Helène parks the vehicle and leaves a note indicating that she will ride the train.
Antoine hurries to Tours railway station, terrified, to attempt to stop her, but the train beats him to it. Still angry, he walks to the closest pub for a drink and, in an attempt to be kind, buys a drink for a huge stranger. What do you know, it’s the criminal (Vincent Deniard), and Antoine decides to give him a ride to Bourdeaux, even though he has a fairly good idea who he is. Headlights illuminate just that barren piece of ground in front of Antoine from this point on his nocturnal trek, making it seem like he’s delving further into hell.
Red Lights is a small triumph because it is modest, content to do its own little thing with the dexterity of a surgeon, and it provides one of the best scenes of sweaty panic I’ve seen in years, as the dazed and confused Antoine, having awoken from the night but not from his nightmare, phones around furiously, trying to find his missing wife, his bald, bug-eyed, gawky face registering a hundred shades of fear but never cracking, He’s already shown, as the film aims to do, that nothing is more deadly than a confined animal, particularly a trapped suburbanite. One of the greatest performances of the decade comes from Darroussin.
