L'OMBRE DU DOUTE
A film review by Gareth Rees & Tavia Chalcraft
Copyright 1994 Gareth Rees & Tavia Chalcraft
Director: Aline Issermann Starring: Sandrine Blancke, Alain Bashung, Mireille Perrier Camera: Dariud Khondji Editor: Herve Scheid Music: Reno Issac Duration: 107 minutes France 1993
A princess is coveted by her father, the King, and escapes by hiding in the skin of a donkey. So goes the real fairy story, but in eleven-year-old Alexandrine LeBlanc's version, the princess starves herself until she is thin enough to fit through the bars of her window, tries to fly away but is too weak, and drowns in the moat. Her teacher, reading this, is sure that something is wrong, and her concern prompts Alexandrine to allege that her father has been sexually abusing her. Jean denies it: "I'm a father. I could never do anything like this. It's unbelievable." His lawyer agrees: "What's a child's word?" Who is speaking the truth?
True to its title, L'OMBRE DU DOUTE inhabits a world of shadows, accentuated by heavy use of a blue filter. In many scenes the characters appear in silhouette: Alexandrine being chased through woods by her father; shadows in the corridor outside her bedroom at night; shadowy figures being led through corridors in the prison and in the court. Another shadow is cast by the white falcon, jean-le-blanc, which haunts Jean's memories of childhood and stares accusingly at him with glowing eyes from a painting in church.
Several times we enter the imagination of Alexandrine: a figure dressed in the skin of a donkey accosts her in the street in Bordeaux; she flies around the house at night, banging her hands uselessly on skylights in an attempt to escape. These fantasies both support Alexandrine--she is clearly disturbed--and undermine her credibility.
Sandrine Blancke gives an extremely convincing portrayal of a withdrawn, unhappy girl--we don't see her smile for the first hour--who we nevertheless come to respect and like. It is a great strength of this film that we want to believe Alexandrine's story even though the truth is hidden until the very end. In most real cases of abuse, of course, the truth never emerges.
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