Deux (2002)
Directed by Werner Schroeter

Film Review

Director Werner Schroeter has acquired a reputation as an experimentalist filmmaker, hailed by some as an underrated genius, reviled by others for being a peddler of self-indulgent kitsch.  Deux is arguably Schroeter's most ambitious, unsettling and repulsive work to date.  The director certainly wastes no time in alienating his audience; from the first ten minutes of the film it is clear this is not going to be an easy ride.  The narrative cuts haphazardly between seemingly unconnected events, alternating between realism and stylised fantasy dream sequences, periodically shocking the spectator with graphic images of lesbian sex and a woman being slowly disembowelled.  Having several actors playing multiple parts only adds to the sense of artifice and utter confusion, which is a pity as there is manifestly a lot of great acting talent on show - not least of which is Isabelle Huppert.  The film's sheer relentless grotesqueness and self-indulgence is so extreme, so unbridled, so stomach-churningly provocative, that it is hard to take any of it seriously.

Film Synopsis

Maria and Magdalena are twin sisters who were abandoned by their mother, a Portuguese immigrant, shortly after they were born.  Neither knows of the other's existence since they were brought up separately.  Maria was raised in a boarding school, but ran away to find work in Marseille as a cabaret singer.  Magdalena was the more privileged sister of the two.  She was adopted into a loving household and now she works in an art gallery in Le Marais, an upmarket neighbourhood of Paris.  They say that twins are forever bound by an invisible thread, so maybe this is what now draws Maria and Magdalena together, towards a shared tragic destiny...