Le Journal du séducteur (1996)
Directed by Danièle Dubroux

Film Review

Le Journal du séducteur is Danièle Dubroux's weirdest film, one that starts out as a fairly conventional French rom-com but which gradually morphs into something much stranger and far more unsettling as surrealist black comedy takes over the narrative and sends it off in a totally unexpected direction. Compared with Dubroux's other idiosyncratic films - Border Line (1992), L'Examen de minuit (1998) - this one is positively bananas.

The eccentricity of the plot is matched by the bizarre casting, which includes two much-loved but now sadly overlooked veterans of French cinema - Jean-Pierre Léaud and Micheline Presle - both acting like blown-up caricatures of their younger selves (not that Léaud can ever do otherwise). Chiara Mastroianni has a waif-like fragility and siren-like allure against which Melvil Poupaud appears positively demonic, scoring at least 150 per cent on the Norman Bates scale of abject 'get me out of here' creepiness. And then there's Mathieu Amalric, no less weird as a confused Don Juan who thinks he can win the woman of his dreams by first seducing her mum. You could almost swear that Dubroux had composed the cast exclusively from the inmates of a lunatic asylum, and then pumped them full of psychotropic drugs for a month to make them even battier.

The unlikely romantic escapades that play out on the screen are apparently guided by an enchanted book that causes those who read it to fall madly in love with its last owner. It's hard to swallow at first but this conceit becomes increasingly plausible as the film delves further and further into the fantastic, before ending up as the scariest of dream experiences. It is the sheer oddness of the film that keeps us interested, even though there is virtually no sense to the narrative and none of the characters rings true for a moment. Le Journal du séducteur shows us what it must be like to lose your mind - layers of normality peeling away until you find yourself alone and confused in the darkest of nights.

Film Synopsis

A young student, Claire, falls obsessively in love with a another student, Gregoire after having read his copy of Kierkegaard's novel, Le Journal du séducteur.  The book apparently is cursed, having the effect of causing anyone who reads it to fall in love with the person who leant it.   Whilst Claire is occupied with Gregoire, she is pursued by another young man, Sebastien, who believes he can win her love by appearing to seduce her mother.  Naturally, Claire is unimpressed.   Despite their mutual attraction, Claire finds Gregoire strangely elusive, but she soon discovers his secret, wrapped up in a fridge freezer in his kitchen...