The Crimson Rivers
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
- crime
- mystery
- thriller
The story
Two French policemen, one investigating a grisly murder at a remote mountain college, the other working on the desecration of a young girl's grave by skinheads, are brought together by the clues from their respective cases. Soon after they start working together, more murders are committed, and the pair begin to discover just what dark secrets are behind the killings.
What it’s like
Cold, high-altitude daylight and snow-blanched Alpine vistas give way to grimy urban night in this French crime thriller, its palette shifting between bleached whites and bruised greys in the mountains and sodium-orange and sickly blue in the Paris suburbs. Camera work is taut and mobile, with close, jittery handheld framing in the investigations and wide, still shots of the isolated college buildings and snowfields that make the landscape feel hostile. The score pulses with synth and percussion when the pace tightens, while long stretches of wind and crunching snow carry the quieter scenes. Tension builds through the procedural grind of clue-hunting, and the two detectives' uneasy partnership, one methodical and withdrawn, the other volatile and self-destructive, supplies much of the emotional friction. Its violence is frequent and often graphic, with bloody murder scenes, bodies left in grim settings, drug use, and skinhead brutality that lands hard and abruptly. Fans of moody, bleak European procedurals and atmospheric whodunits who can handle sustained gore will find it absorbing; those seeking something gentle should look elsewhere.
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