Maelstrom

''Maelstrom'' is probably the first romantic drama ever narrated by a smelly dead fish. What might a dead fish have to do with love? It has something to do with the ocean whence life springs. And as it turns out, fish figure prominently in the symbolic structure of this fine French Canadian film, written and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Its protagonist, Bibi Champagne (Marie-Josée Croze), is a beautiful and successful 25-year-old businesswoman. Virtually overnight, Bibi's sleek yuppie existence unravels, and she faces an acute spiritual crisis when she has a series of personal disasters.

Commenting on her travails, the craggy-voiced fish (Pierre Lebeau), the movie's philosophical voice, periodically punctuates the soundtrack of a movie whose strategy is to surprise us by taking abrupt surreal sidetracks. At one point in the story, when a character in a restaurant complains about the toughness of her octopus, the film goes on a wild tangent as the waiter complains to the cook who in turn calls his supplier, and we follow the path the octopus took to reach her plate.

As weird as it may sound, the movie's aquatic fixation is integral to its concept. For above and beyond telling a story, ''Maelstrom'' is a meditation on the disconnection between the glossy surfaces of high-end urban existence and the life-and-death realities they camouflage. The opening scene finds Bibi undergoing an abortion. The procedure is carried out with such a cool, clinical dispassion that she doesn't see what is removed from inside her, which is taken away and immediately incinerated.

Afterward Bibi, feeling desolate, is comforted by her best friend, Claire (Stephanie Morgenstern), who has had three abortions and who advises Bibi to ''de-dramatize'' what has just happened. Bibi's composure further unravels when her brother -- who employs her in a business importing high-priced boutique items from Sumatra -- fires her for losing $200,000 in a transaction. We also learn that Bibi's mother, now dead, is a legend in the fashion world. A glossy magazine called L'Avenir (The Future) interviews Bibi and photographs her posing as her mother for a cover story.

The final blow comes when Bibi, preoccupied with her problems, strikes a pedestrian while driving and blithely leaves the scene of the accident. Later she learns from the newspaper that the victim, a Norwegian immigrant who worked as a fishmonger, has died. Guilt-stricken and terrified, she drives her car off a pier in an act that's both penance and an attempt to erase any evidence.

For all the modern anomie that ''Maelstrom'' evokes, the movie insists there is a hidden connection between things. And when Bibi meets the dead man's son, Evian (Jean-Nicolas Verreault), a handsome frogman, their anguished tango recalls the dance of Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry in ''Monster's Ball.''

''Maelstrom'' is a deliberately unsteady mixture of stylistic elements. Some, like the recurrent images of turbulent water foaming at the bottom of the screen, are abstract. Others, like the abortion, are clinical. The talking fish chopped up by a blood-spattered fishmonger is Dadaist, while the swooning images of sunsets over water and the love scenes are intensely romantic.

The soundtrack also varies from the Dadaist (Tom Waits growling a lyric about drowning in the ocean) to the romantic (Edvard Grieg). Not all the selections are well advised. ''Good Morning, Starshine'' from ''Hair,'' which recurs as a perky upbeat palliative, sounds annoyingly tinny and ends the movie on a shallow note.

What's sacrificed by the conceptual audacity is a sharp sense of character. Ms. Croze's Bibi never really transcends the stereotype of a yuppie cold fish (if you will), and the details of her family history remain frustratingly sketchy. But the film's iconoclastic mixture of elements is still a courageous attempt to ambush us by tearing through the surfaces of Bibi's life to conjure the gnarly essence of what lies beneath.

Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One)

Somehow it falls to the French to do taut thrillers these days. Usually, where an American producer will use special effects, the French use sex.

This French adaptation of Harlan Coben's convoluted thriller (a best-seller) is doomed, by its language, to be overlooked by the majority of English-speaking moviegoers which is a huge shame, because it is a very stylish film that deserves a wider audience. It's strange that an American book has been made by the French, especially one with such obvious commercial potential, but had Hollywood bought the rights, I can't help thinking it would have produced something altogether different.

TELL NO ONE opens on one of those naturalistic dinner party scenes: all glasses clinking and laughter and dialogue just a pitch below hearing. Yet this is a misleading beginning for a film that progresses into a thoroughly surprising and superior tale of a husband's desperate search for his seemingly dead wife. Mystery gives way to puzzles. Puzzels lead to darker ones. Canet executes the set-up for his tale beautifully, placing his couple stark naked, lakeside, and under the moonlight to emphasize the sheer indulgence of their love. Then with little dialogue he changes the tone from romanticism, to blinding horror as Alexandre (Francois Cluzet) hears a scream and tries in vain to save his wife Margot (Josee Croze) but is beaten over the head by her attacker.

8 years later, on her death anniversary, the dedicated paediatrician is still mourning his wife. But after all these years, he suddenly begins receiving emails, apparently from beyond the grave. A link connects him to a public security camera at a particular time which shows him his wife looking older, and apparently still alive, wanting to make contact with him, but in cryptic methods which is baffling because all this starts when the police have finally found Margot's remains at the place where she was murdered. Going by the style of murder, the police easily zero in on a psycopathic killer and arrest him.

This is only the start, and combined with increasingly suspicious police investigators and a string of further murders, lead to the doctor being framed for the murder of his own wife in a forcefully re-opened investigation after so many years and ultimately going on the run. Both to save his life and to follow a mad instinctive idea that Margot may still be alive inspite of obvious, physical evidence.

One of his remaining links with the world and sanity is the girlfriend (Kristin Scott Thomas is possibly even more captivating in French and her poise and cheekbones seem to be a natural marriage with the language and Parisian backdrop). He is forced to abandon his career and home, and undergo a profound personality change. Another accomplice is the 'low-life' (Marchal, best known as a director), who owes the doctor a favour. This heavy dude, in one scene which raises the story to high comedy, is outraged at being put in the shade by Dr Beck's new-found psychopathic tendencies.

With traces of Diva, as well as Marathon Man, this naturalistic thriller holds you all the way to the end. Just watch that long chase scene midway through the film and listen to the soundtrack, distinctly downbeat in comparison to the type of music most American films would use, it nevertheless ratchets up the tension just as well. And there is a mutual moment of revelation for both us and the beleaguered doctor played to U2's 'With or Without You' which sent a small shiver racing down my spine. Each scene is very well directed, but the pacing is relaxed allowing for some tragi comedy.

This film borrows successful elements from many other films, including some recognisable caricatures, but weaves a very cohesive world the the hero bounces around in. Cluzot looks a little like a darker, more rugged Dustin Hoffmann and copes well with the range of emotions he is asked to portray.

What keeps us gripped though, is that we actually care about these characters and their fate-about what really happened that night (which is possibly why I put up with a slightly indulgent confession scene), and despite the fact that this thriller utterly surpassed most of the usual Hollywood offerings; I found myself craving what Tinsel Town does best: a happy ending.

And yeah I'll be watching Department 36, another thriller by this man and see for myself if Canet is the french version of Paul Greengrass.