Reviews

La Moustache

or lack thereof

By A.S. HAMRAH | August 23, 2006

3.0 Stars

LA MOUSTACHE: How a minor change can make the world a different place.

Every morning men have to look at themselves in the mirror and decide how they’re holding up. It’s a daily existential crisis. A history of cinema could be made out of “man in the mirror” scenes: De Niro’s “You lookin’ at me?” speech from Taxi Driver, Jeff Goldblum’s disintegration in Cronenberg’s The Fly. In La moustache, Marc (Vincent Lindon), a Parisian architect, shaves off the moustache he’s had for years. No one notices, not even his wife (Emmanuelle Devos). Soon everything in Marc’s life appears fraudulent. Hitchcock would have dispensed with this story in a half-hour on TV. Emmanuel Carrère extends it. He takes his hero on a journey to the Orient, where Marc ditches his cellphone but can’t escape his life. Carrère shows how a minor change can make the world a different place, how it disappears under our feet without our noticing, how glimpses into little truths can make the people around us seem hostile and ultimately drive us mad.

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