What can you say about a film with multiple producers from different cultures and with diverse points of view, who finally mutilated it to accommodate their interests? Obviously, Canadians, French and Americans do not have the same notion of cinema. The "globalized entrepreneurs" apparently did and, in this case, "won." It's no wonder director Jean-Paul Salomé claims that the film was altered from its original conception.
This is neither a detective film, nor a crime thriller. It is a drama about identity, about deprivation of love, about moralistic justice, which illustrates the damage done to all children abandoned by parents who, to begin with, should never have had them. Based on real events, "The Chameleon" adapts a chapter in the life of Frédéric Bourdin, a French citizen abandoned by his Algerian father and French mother, nicknamed Chameleon by the press, for his notorious adoption of hundreds of false identities in various European countries, and for sneaking into several homes, posing as a missing relative. It was proven that there was no sexual deviation or economic motive in his actions: he was only looking for affection.
However, Frédéric had the bad idea of posing as a missing Texan teenager. This is how he managed to be "repatriated" to the United States, to be accommodated by the child's dysfunctional family (in the film, a proletarian, violent, heroin-addicted brother and mother, plus a sister who denies the truth), and that television and the police would doubt his identity, until they identified him and put him through a "moralizing" trial, in which he was given six years in prison, instead of the three established by law in such a case.
According to the tone and treatment of the filmed material, Salomé (director of "Belphegor", "Arsene Lupine" and "La daronne") and his co-screenwriter Natalie Carter had the purpose of observing and analyzing the events. Then the editor Toby Yates (son of Peter Yates, director of the action thriller "Bullitt") came on the scene and reissued the movie, so we do not know what the original 106-minute proposal was.
However, with everything that could be argued against it, I saw an honest and moving film, slow and inquisitive, with good performances from the cast. Not everything has to be extraordinary or Hollywood-style. The world is wide and open, the intimate or public exposition of human drama varies according to cultures and its appreciation is suitable for many readings and interpretations.
