On DVD: The Page Turner

Directed By Denis Dercourt

Starring Catherine Frot, Deborah Francios, Pascal Greggory, and Antoine Mortynciow

Melanie (Deborah Francios), a promising young pianist, fails her performance exam after being distracted by the thoughtless actions of famous pianist Ariane Fouchecourt (Catherine Frot), one of the jurors. Crushed Melanie goes home silently, locks down her piano, puts away her figurine of Mozart, and leaves behind her music for the rest of her childhood.

Years later, Melanie begins an internship in a firm ran by M. Fouchecourt, who needs a fill-in governess for his son Tristan. After offering to work for the Fouchecourts, Melanie finds herself in the home with the famed juror from that fateful childhood day. Almost sinisterly stoical, Melanie beings subtly manipulating the family to exact her revenge on Ariane.

Brilliantly written and directed, The Page Turner is a wonderful mixture of psychological suspense and the revenge genre, recently released on DVD by Tartan Home Video.

The Film

Director and writer Denis Dercourt uses his robust  musical background as a paradigm for crafting this film. His fusion of tension and release, the basic structure of musical compositions, keeps the audience rapt throughout this film until the very end. This film is a cinematic version of the literary page turner. Dercourt has a grand sense for the use of silence and subtlety before and after intense explosive scenes. The scene where Melanie stabs one of Ariane’s Trio musicians with a cello is a wonderful example of Dercourt’s precision in directing important climactic moments.

If openings are indicative of a promising film, then the first scenes of The Page Turner grab attention right away. A strange juxtaposition of images shifts through the first few minutes as the opening credits roll.  Scenes of young Melanie nimbly playing gorgeous compositions alternates with scenes of Melanie’s father butchering cuts of meat. The contrast between the mundane the artful strike us with a sense of the rawness yet disciplined constraint of Melanie’s psyche.

No doubt, childhood events scar us as this film would seem to suggest. Melanie easily becomes a character study of the fine line between angst and psychosis.  Melanie blames her failure upon her juror and all the pain of rejection has stewed over many years. However, her actions are hard to read as she is quiet, stoical, and careful. Deborah Francios, with an awesome ability in fine acting, portrays Melanie with great attention to detail. Francios adds slight hues of shrewdness and hints of malevolence to Melanie’s expressions, but only just enough to make us wonder what this girl is all about.

At the same time, Catherine Frot portrays the vulnerability of Ariane to a tee. Ariane comes to trust Melanie and soon has her as a page turner. Little does Ariane realize who her page turner really is. Melanie uses her simple, youthful beauty and silent alluring quality just enough to attract Ariane’s love. The two actresses beautifully capture an erotic kiss-of-death exchange between Melanie and Ariane; of course, this is another scene well-directed too. Frot’s rueful, searching eyes convince us of Ariane’s conflict over her crush on Melanie. Also, Frot takes on a very hard-to-act feinting scene and makes it believable and subtle. This final climactic scene comes together with great finesse largely due to Frot.

Music is an important element weaving throughout this film. Since music is at the basis of The Page Turner’s plot, it is no wonder that solid scoring and careful and practical selections are just as amazing as the writing is. Composer Jerome Lemonier does a beautiful job with the music. The music played by the actors was a mixture of Schubert and Chostakovitch, which was adapted and simplified in order to be easier played. Still, the sounds come off just fine. Several the pieces had just enough cacophony and dissonance to mimic the thematic tensions running through the film.

The Page Turner is a great award-winning film. Here we have yet another hallmark in films with psychological thrill and dreadful revenge.

9.5/10

The Video

Presented in full-screen, the video is crisp. My only complaint is that some of the letters of the titles ran off the screen during the opening credits.  

7/10

The Audio

The audio is mostly great throughout. My DVD copy had some glitches where the sound cut out with some popping noises.

6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features

The DVD release of The Page Turner is in a standard aramay case. The DVD offers one bonus feature about the making of the film. It is quite informative and interesting to learn more about the director and actors involved.

6/10

Great movie, great presentation, a must have for horror fans and even indie filmmakers and indie film fans.  Stay through the closing credits!

Overall (Not an Average) 8.5/10

The Film 9/10

The Video 7/10

The Audio 6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 6/10

Overall 8/10

-Chuck Knight