Anna M (Isabelle Carré) is a poor and sick girl : she's lonely, depressive, she has no friends or sentimental life, she's got a boring job at the Fench National Library and she lives alone with her mother, who seems unable to fill the void of her life. So, she naturally tries to kill herself an evening, while taking the dog out. And when she wakes up at the hospital, she had to find a new meaning to her life, and it will take the shape of the doctor who cured her (Gilbert Melki), for whom she'll develop a crazy love fixation : even if it seems obvious that he only fells indifference for his patient for whom he only have professional concerns, she'll convince herself that he shares with her an absolute love. The movie develops wit realism and intelligence this fixation, that slowly become a dangerous mental sickness, and fallows its progression steps by steps, with the seriousness of a psychological study.
To the crudity of this study, that sometimes really penetrates the intimacy of this troubled conscience, Michel Spinosa adds some horror/thriller's touch that wears a double face. Spinosa uses a fantastic tone and even some horror movies figures of style in order to describe the subjectivity of his character (nighmare sequences, deformed frame to underline the sickness of Anna, etc.), but he's also stage some horrific triller scenes, that lead to the most impressive and tense sequence of the movie, where the monstrous character is now in charge of children. The use of horror figures in a traditional dramatic movie is always interesting in the world of french "Cinema d'Auteur", even if it's more and more common (see the recent "Le dernier des fous", in which Laurent Achard imposed a fantastic tone to a classical family study, or "ILS", a french horror movie, supposedly based on real events). And it's nice to see that the mix is quite efficient and that, thanks to the the reflection of the psychological and the horror sides, you're able to clearly understand the madness of the main character.
This description of madness, full of tension, is certainly the great achievement of the movie, but if you're deep in it when you're watching it, it's strange to see how its effects quickly disappear after the screening. Even if I was completely emerged in the movie while watching it, I didn't kept a strong memory of the movie, and it didn't get much impact on me. I think it's partly due to the clinical and cold impression that crosses the all movie, and to the fact that you never really fell anything for the characters. Anna is more like a figure of study, an experimental subject for whom you don't really get any emotion nor compassion, but only understanding, than a really human being. And the Dr. Zanevsky doesn't really exist, except in Anna's mind. Melki's character is just plain and mediocre, and you're never really able to see it through the crazy eyes of his mad lover. That's also why, at the end, despite the original efforts of the movie, I still got the feeling to have watched another classical french little drama.
