杀人的夏天

In Jean Becker’s ONE DEADLY SUMMER, Isabelle Adjani plays Eliane Wieck, a young woman bent on bringing the reckoning on those who raped her mother, and one of whom is her biological father. That précis sounds heavy, but when the film commences, through the carefree voiceover of Fiorimond aka. Pin-Pon (curly-haired Francophone singer-songwriter Souchon, a subtler performer making a pleasurable pair with Adjani), a small-time firefighter and grease monkey, it feels like a boy-meets-girl comedy, with him getting infatuated with Eliane, the new sexy girl in town with her family.

Eliane becomes the talk of the town for her sultry, uninhibited sensuality, and takes a fancy to Pin-Pon with an ulterior motive (the family piano left by Pin-Pon’s father plays a key role in ascertaining the identities of those base sex offenders). But underneath her free-spirited, come-hither deportment, the weight of this unspeakable secret often prompts her into paroxysms of mood-swings (punctuated by past memories and harrowing experiences), which act like yellow flags to Pin-Pon of her mental instability. That said, no heterosexual men can possibly resist the allure of a primetime Adjani, soon Eliane moves into Pin-Pon’s dwelling, with his widowed mother Madame Montecciari (Clève), his semi-deaf auntie Cognata (Flon, delectably sagacious and breezy) and his two younger brothers, Mickey (a 28-year-old Cluzet, then a fresh-faced dreamboat, acting with great facility) and Boubou (Gélin).

The familial dynamism is not entirely harmonious, the stony-faced Madame Montecciari is expectedly leery of the interloper, but that aside, Eliane wins over the rest of them, striking a particular rapport with Cognata. With her wedding approaches, Eliane goes about locating the whereabouts of the alleged offenders, henceforth Becker’s film veers into a more haphazard, suspenseful fast lane where Eliane’s behavior becomes more and more erratic. Becker makes the tonal shift with élan and felicity, adhering to Eliane’s action but also interspersing levity to one’s amazement (like Eliane’s sapphic foray with her teacher, for example).

The story, based on scribe Sébastien Japrisot’s own novel, puts a different spin on the warmed-over retribution tale, playing up the deepest wound and shame that induces a fateful uncommunicativeness between a father and his daughter, complicated by a violent incident that scars both either physically or mentally. Adjani is indeed captivating in inhabiting Eliane’s mercurial temperaments, fiery, recalcitrant, brazen and helpless, she is a one-track mind and when that mission fails her spectacularly, with the painful irony that everything could be salvaged if only she knew her father’s deeds before, eventually she goes off the deep end, leaving the collateral damage of two innocent lives in the wake of a searing treatment of rape victimology.

Inner thoughts and important information are elucidated by voiceover of multiple characters in Becker’s bleached, fetching drama rich in whims, pathos and resonance. And the film’s huge success, it is the 2nd highest-grossing film of the year in France, can also be partially attributed to Adjani’s candid voluptuousness and Delerue’s enchanting musicality, ONE DEADLY SUMMER holds the distinction of a high water mark in Adjani’s luminous career and mines into her stunning acting chops with a vengeance.

referential entries: Andrzej Zulawski’s POSSESSION (1981, 7.5/10); Claude Chabrol’s VIOLETTE (1978, 6.3/10).

卷發蓬蓬潔如童，美目湛湛意朦胧； 性乱情昏心懮焦，熱泪灼灼身囹圄。 有一個女孩世故老成，有一個女孩纯潔如花。有一個女孩性感火辣，有一個女孩伶俐乖巧。 蓬蓬的卷发，黝黑的皮肤，澄澈的蓝眼睛，十九歲的艾丽娜骤然出現在狭隘街巷，犹如夏天里悄然绽放的妖艷野花，瞬間吸引了所有人的目光，故事以此拉開帷幕。片中的阿佳妮诡谲难测，又复杂多变，她忽而满眼垂泪，颤颤巍巍；忽而痴痴傻傻，呆呆挣挣；又忽而眉花眼笑，神采飛扬。好似有着千張面孔般變换自如。她赤身裸体不避众目，仿佛對世俗的制约与道德缺乏理解認同，她吸允母汁，如同一個巨型女婴般黏黏糊糊。 她在炳炳骄陽下坠入愛情，身披纯白嫁衣嘤嘤哭泣；她隐瞒丈夫找寻'生父'复仇，身穿红色裙衣泪眼朦胧，一切雖不見淋淋鲜血，却令人鼻頭酸楚，心頭凄怆。

所幸（抑或不幸），被扑朔迷离的身世之謎不断魔祟着已然千疮百孔的艾丽娜最後又變回了曾經不染尘埃的女童，目光炯炯的稚子。