Lucas Belvaux saved the best film for last in his ambitious project “The Trilogy.”
The three films that make up the trilogy all look at the same series of events from different perspectives, and take place in different genres. The first film, “On The Run,” was a thriller following a radical terrorist named Bruno on the loose in the streets of Grenoble, France. The second, “An Amazing Couple,” was a romantic comedy featuring some peripheral characters from “On The Run.”
Now comes “After the Life,” which switches the point of view to Pascal (Gilbert Melki), the police detective who is trying to track down Bruno. But instead of being another thriller, this film is actually a wrenching drama about fidelity and addiction.
We follow Pascal as he heads from crime scene to crime scene (the crimes themselves we already saw in “On The Run”), shaking down Bruno’s old associates, trying to come up with some leads. Having already seen Bruno’s path of destruction in the first film, it’s kind of a kick to see Pascal following in his wake, and also be able to make some connections that we couldn’t see in the first movie.
The biggest revelation is that Pascal, who came across as so brutal and driven in the first film, is actually under the thumb of the local crime lord Paquillat, who Bruno is trying to kill. Pascal’s schoolteacher wife Agnes (Dominique Blanc) is a full-blown morphine addict, and Pascal has fed her habit for years by stealing drugs from crime scenes, evidence lockers and elsewhere. But Paquillat delivers an ultimatum; no more drugs for Agnes until Pascal kills Bruno.
So the heart of “After the Life” isn’t really Pascal’s pursuit of Bruno at all, but the relationship between Pascal and Agnes. It’s a tortured, co-dependent but somehow loving marriage; if Pascal ever tried to get Agnes clean, he’s long past that point now, and just brings home packets of morphine like they were groceries. At night, he gently puts away Agnes’ syringes and tucks her drugged-out body into bed, like she was a child.
As Pascal’s drug supply dries up and Agnes goes into withdrawal, their relationship is strained to the breaking point. Blanc gives an agonizing portrait of an addict who can fake a normal middle-class life for a while, until she misses a fix. Melki is mesmerizing as the conflicted cop, and you sense that the tenderness and neediness he shows Agnes at home fuels his roughness on the job.
The only piece in “The Trilogy” that still doesn’t fit for me is the plot of “An Amazing Couple,” in which Cecile, a friend of Agnes, hires Pascal to find out if her husband is cheating on her. Cecile has a larger role in “After the Life” than in “On the Run,” and her subplot still seems like an annoying distraction.
“After the Life” wraps up the trilogy with a suitably bleak but beautiful ending. Given how interconnected the three films are, you can’t get the full effect of Belvaux’s worthy project without seeing all of them. But if I had to recommend just one film out of the three, it would be this one.