User reviews

Not so good movie by Robert Lepage about a guy who's girlfriend is dead. He's got to take the lie detector (polygraphe) test but the results are inconclusive.

The movie is not very convincing with maybe one too many twist in the plot. The acting is not very inspiring also. In all, a very average movie.

Out of 100, I gave it 72.

Coming across as rather less flaccid on its second viewing (the first being at the LFF 1996), Le Polygraphe still impresses more as an exercise in style over content. LePage himself stated that after the narrative and filmic experimentation of Le Confessional, Le Polygraphe is more concerned with exploring character. To this end it is only partially successful. In giving almost equal time to each of the main characters (especially ones that initially seem to have little bearing on the story), the film lacks a focus. Whilst Patrick Goyette's Francois is too withdrawn to elicit much sympathy in the central role, he is also lost amongst the swamp of sub-stories, and thus the audience is not really given a suitable hook into the main narrative. The film does seem to meander, often threatening to spin off in another direction at any point, though it does so through some interesting territory, and LePage's stylised visuals, despite often treading the line of mere gimmickry, work well. Whilst certainly rather obscure upon first viewing, this is still a respectably well crafted film; atmospheric and certainly not one without interest.

"Le Polygraphe" is writer-director Robert Lepage's immediate follow-up to "Le Confessionnal", and it shares some of the same strengths and weaknesses: it has an intriguing start (a man takes a polygraph test as the main suspect for the murder of his girlfriend; meanwhile, his neighbor, an actress, gets to play the victim in a movie that is being made based on the very same story), and some virtuoso sequences (the best of which probably comes at the start, when the actress is "teleported" from a studio to a metro station), but Lepage's treatment is far too laid-back and diffuse (I failed to see what the character of the East German refugee added to the plot). There are isolated flourishes that are worth seeing, but the film probably should have been half its length. ** out of 4.