Michel Durand is a psychoanalyst. His days tick by in the muffled torpor of his office amid the moans of a math teacher complaining about her unruly pupils, the ranting of a premature ejaculator and the sado-masochistic tales of Olga Kubler, a perverted kleptomaniac. A pretty ordinary life for a therapist, if the strange and seductive Mrs. Kubler hadn’t had the unfortunate idea of getting strangled on her doctor’s couch, just when he’d fallen asleep. As the snow falls over Paris, silent flakes whirl in the doctor’s dreams… 7 p.m. The clock chimes. The session is over. Olga does not move. This time, Michel Durand is wide awake.
What happened? Who killed the wife of Max Kubler, the crooked property developer? Why do Michel Durand’s forearms ache? Is it possible to murder someone in your sleep? Enough questions… He has to act. Get rid of the body. Fast. For Commissaire Chapireau is heading the investigation and Max Kubler is searching his wife like a maniac…
Dragged into this crazy pursuit in spite of himself, Durand will enter a world where dream and reality merge as one, where murder and fantasies vie with every kind of perversion. And at the end of the road, like a message of hope, is the sweet and sensual Helen… the lover, the friend, the woman he loves.
Jean-Jacques Beineix (born October 8, 1946) is a French film director.
In 1964, Jean-Jacques Beineix started his career as Jean Becker’s assistant director on the famous French TV series, Les saintes chéries until the end of 1967. Then, in 1970 he worked for Claude Berri and in 1971 for Claude Zidi. In 1977, he directed his first short movie Le chien de M. Michel which won the first prize at the Trouville Festival. In 1980, he directed his first feature film Diva which received four César Award in 1982 followed by Moon in the Gutter. This movie was nominated at Cannes Festival in 1983. In 1986, Jean-Jacques Beineix directed Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) with Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade. This film was nominated to the best foreign movie Oscar. He directed Roselyne et les lions in 1989, IP5: L’île aux pachydermes in 1992 and Mortel transfert in 2001. In Fall 2006 he published the first volume… read more
AT 2 hours this dark comedy is perhaps 20 minutes too long.Trying to be many things,it actually is boring in some parts,as not all themes worked. But great cinematography and Jean-Hugues Anglade make it worth watching.