The Polygraph
Director: Robert Lepage.
Starring: Patrick Goyette, Marie Brassard, Peter Stormare, Josee
Deschenes, James Hyndman.
The Polygraph begins very intriguingly. The camera angles,
along with the detailed description of exactly what is occurring grips
the viewer, pulling one immediately in to the film. It also does
that wonderful thing of starting in the middle of the story. Rather
than assuming that the viewers are all simple-minded fools who need
everything explained to them, The Polygraph lets the story
unfold, allowing us to discover what the different relationships are
and what is going on.
Unfortunately, once one has discovered what's going on, there's not
much left to the story. The murder mystery is not much of a mystery.
Even if the hero has no idea whether or not he did it, the viewer
clearly knows. Perhaps the murder mystery is not the important part
of the story.
As the movie progressed, I came to the conclusion that the main point
of the story is the fall of the Berlin Wall (and perhaps those dolls
within dolls within dolls). In fact, the main issues of The
Polygraph are unification (Berlin: two cities, heart: two
ventricles) and truth. The movie deals with the big question "What is
Truth?", although it doesn't deal with it very well. It implies that
truth operates on many levels and is, in some part, relative. Having
such a simple, trite conclusion to the murder mystery undermines this
premise completely. There are no levels, no complexity.
The alternative plot involving Cristof (Peter Stormare) and East
Germany offered some intriguing possibilities but was vaguely
dissatifying. Whilst I love movies that raise questions and make me
think about them long after I've left the cinema, The
Polygraph was frustrating as it never gave me enough information
to even formulate sensible queries. I'm not even sure I've been given
enough information about any single character in the movie that I care
about anyone. I certainly didn't care what happened to our hero.
There were some interesting touches to the movie. The restaurant
scenes are very arresting and compulsive viewing. The subway scene is
also very good. Ultimately it is the characters which let this movie
down; they never grab the viewer or make us care. Perhaps, just like
a polygraph can never really tell us anything (the results are usually
inconclusive and inadmissible in court), so too this movie is
inconclusive. That is kind of a clever idea but not much of a movie.
The Polygraph, rather than revealing a truth, is an
unsatisfying movie experience.
Rating: P
© Nikki Lesley 1997