Icarus Films will be
delivering the next Distrib Films release — the company’s exclusive
distribution deal with the French film producer — to the domestic marketplace
on July 24 with the DVD debut of writer/director Nicolas Pariser’s The
Great Game (Le Grand Jeu).
The chilling words are
spoken, “Disappearing is tricky business … it can even attract attention,” by a
power broker by the name of Joseph Paskin (Andre Dussollier). These are the kind of words that can get one
to thinking. Words that create tension;
anxiety ... and perhaps more, but they are delivered with such eloquence that
the true terror is masked.
The thriller gets going
when Paskin has a chance and friendly meeting one evening with a man by the
name of Pierre (Melvil Poupaud). Later,
when this one-time novelist discovers that the meeting was not by chance he
becomes intrigued with (or, if you like, “seduced by”) an offer put forth by
this clever manipulator.
Pierre as it turns out
was once a promising writer, but when his first novel was not well received he
lost the spirit; the drive. Paskin
offers him a potentially lucrative path back to both fame and a chance to
practice his skill-set … he’s very upfront about what he wants the writer to
write about.
It’s political in nature,
a call to revolution (based loosely on “The Tarnac Nine” conspiracy in France
that unfolded in November of 2008). He
can even be anonymous if he likes. But
once the book is finished, Pierre discovers that he has become a target and the
terror of Paskin’s words suddenly become clear. He is a “nobody” that will not be missed.
He escapes to the
countryside and meets an attractive — and very political — woman by the name of
Laura (Clémence Poésy). Her connection
to the underlying political intrigue brings the events full circle.
The Great Game is presented in French with English subtitles.
No comments:
Post a Comment