The Crimson Rivers

The Crimson Rivers
French film poster
Directed by	Mathieu Kassovitz
Produced by	Alain Goldman
Written by	Jean-Christophe Grangé Mathieu Kassovitz
Starring	Jean Reno Vincent Cassel
Music by	Bruno Coulais
Cinematography	Thierry Arbogast
Editing by	Maryline Monthieux
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures (USA)
Release date(s)	France 27 September 2000 USA 29 June 2001
Running time	106 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Budget	14,482,642 €
Box office	26,692,510 €

The Crimson Rivers (French: Les Rivières Pourpres) is a 2000 French psychological thriller film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and based on the best-selling novel Les Rivières Pourpres by the film's co-writer Jean-Christophe Grangé. This $14 million-budgeted film went on to gross $60 million in worldwide theatrical release.

A sequel, Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse (Les Rivières Pourpres II: Les Anges de l'Apocalypse), was released in 2004.

Plot

Detective Superintendent (Commissaire Principal) Pierre Niemans (Jean Reno), a well-known investigator, is sent to the small university town of Guernon in the French Alps to investigate a brutal murder and mutilation. The victim's body had been placed in the fetal position, bound and suspended high on a cliff face, his eyes removed and his hands cut off. Niemans soon learns that the victim was the University's librarian, Remy Callois, and he seeks out a local opthalmologist for an explanation of the eyes' mutilation. Dr. Cherneze, once on the University staff, explains that the school's isolation led to inbreeding amongst the professors, with increasingly serious genetic disorders. But recently the trend has reversed, with the local village children becoming ill and the college babies remaining healthy. Cherneze hints that the killer is leaving Niemans clues to the motive by removing the body parts that are unique to each individual - the eyes and hands. Neimans then questions the Dean, and he is led to the librarian's apartment, where he finds images of athletic "supermen" juxtaposed with texts on genetic deformities. The Dean's assistant (and son) Hubert translates the title of Callois' Ph.D. thesis as, "We are the masters. We are the slaves. We are everywhere. We are nowhere. We control the crimson rivers."

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector (Lieutenant de Police) Max Kerkerian (Vincent Cassel) is in the nearby town of Sarzac investigating the desecration of the grave of a girl, Judith Herault, who died in 1982, and the theft of her photos from the local primary school. The administrator remembers that the girl was killed in a horrific highway accident, witnessed by her mother, who was so traumatized she took a vow of darkness in a nunnery. The mother tells Kerkerian that when Judith was ten she fell ill, and they went back to the hospital in Guernon where she was born to get help. But they were attacked by "demons," and when they fled her daughter was killed on the highway. She says the pictures were taken to erase her daughter from history, and that her face is a threat to the demons who have returned to complete their mission. She tells him it all began in Guernon.

Neimans goes next to question Fanny Ferreira (Nadia Farès), a glaciologist and student, who is immediately suspect because of her climbing ability. Despite her contempt for the the school and its arrogant professors, she works for the university to steer away frequent avalanches, and is incensed when Neimans implies she might withhold evidence to protect the school. But she tells him that anyone with good equipment could've hoisted the body up the cliff, and brushes off his obvious attraction. Soon after, the pathologist informs Niemans that the rain in Callois' eye sockets was acid rain, something that has not fallen in the area since the seventies. So Niemans enlists Fanny to take him up the glacier to get ice samples to compare with the acid rain in Callois' eyes. On a hunch, Niemans follows a glacial melt tunnel to a cave that contains a second body, frozen into the ice.

Kerkerian traces a car from the accident to Phillip Sertys in Guernon and meets Niemans while attempting to break into Sertys' apartment. Sertys is the body in the ice, a doctor that worked in the maternity ward at the University hospital. They find Judith's stolen photograph as well as evidence that Sertys was breeding and training fighting dogs - and then they find the dogs, and Niemans the "supercop" is momentarily paralyzed by fear, until Kerkerian coaxes him through.

Sertys was also mutilated, and his eyes replaced with glass prosthetics. "Like you would find at an eye doctor's," remarks the pathologist, leading Niemans to race back to Cherneze's practice. The doctor is already dead, but they almost catch the killer, who races away after deliberately emptying Nieman's gun into the wall but not hitting him. Kerkerian gives chase but the killer escapes. Returning to the scene, where the killer has written "I will trace the source of the crimson rivers" in Cherneze's own blood above his body, the prints on Niemans gun are found to belong not to a criminal but to the finger of Judith Herault, who is supposed to have been dead for eighteen years.

Kerkerian goes to back to search the grave in Sarzac, which is empty except for a picture, while Niemans takes Fanny home. Neimans tells her that although he sees her as physically capable of committing the crimes he doesn't believe her to be guilty. When he returns to the school, the local police captain tells him that Callois' thesis is full of Nazi ideas suggesting perfection can be achieved by breeding athletically gifted and intellectually gifted children together.

Kerkerian returns with the photo, which Niemans recognizes as Fanny and on the way to her house they piece together the story. Due to the poor bloodlines and genetic mutations in the inbred professor’s offspring, the doctors at the hospital had been swapping healthy village children with the frail university children. Sertys, they deduce, must have swapped Fanny for Judith. Callois had taken over his father's job arranging the matches meaning the college was not so much a school as a giant breeding cult.

They're almost killed by the Dean's son trying to ram their car off the road, in an effort to halt them from finding the truth but make it to Fanny's house. There they find a torture room in the basement complete with the missing hands and eyes of the victims. Though she could have killed him earlier, Fanny is now gone and so are her grenades. Niemans gives the order to evacuate the valley while he and Kerkerian travel up the mountain to find Fanny.

Seeing her set the charges, the duo confront Fanny only to be set upon by her double. Judith and Fanny were identical twins. Fanny had been swapped at birth but Judith left behind, so when she got sick and her mother went with her to the hospital, the university staff knew they had to get rid of her. Their mother cut off Judith’s finger and faked her death to save her child. However it meant that Judith had to live in the shadow of Fanny for the last eighteen years and doing so has sent her mad. Judith has been exacting her revenge by killing those responsible for her lost life.

She attacks Kerkerian, knocking him out momentarily while Niemans tries to reason with Fanny after throwing away his gun. Judith retrieves it and hands it to her sister. When Judith instructs Fanny to kill Niemans she refuses to shoot the innocent man and instead turns the gun on her sister. At the same time Kerkerian shoots Fanny in the shoulder and the combined noise sets off an avalanche that sweeps away Judith and buries the three in the snow. The movie ends with them being found by search dogs and Niemans finally beginning to explain to Kerkerian his fear of canines.

Explanation of the plot

Actor Vincent Cassel who played detective Max Kerkerian admitted, "I can't help explain the film because I didn't understand it!" "We cut out everything in the film that was explanatory, therefore 'boring' [according to the director]. You end up with a film that's not boring but you don't understand it [at] all."

Cast

Actor/Actress	Role
Jean Reno	Pierre Niemans
Vincent Cassel	Max Kerkerian
Nadia Farès	Fanny Ferreira / Judith Hérault
Dominique Sanda	Sister Andrée
Karim Belkhadra	Captain Dahmane
Jean-Pierre Cassel	Dr. Bernard Chernezé
Didier Flamand	Dean
François Levantal	Pathologist
Francine Bergé	Headmistress
Philippe Nahon	Man at highway intervention station

Filming locations

Exteriors were shot on location near Grenoble in the communes of Albertville, Livet-et-Gavet, Avrieux, Apprieu, Bourg d'Oisans, Vallorcine, Vinay and Virieu sur Bourbre.

The university was actually the Onera Modane-Avrieux wind tunnels Centre at Villarodin-Bourget, Savoy 45°12′49.53″N 6°43′1.90″E. The glacier scenes were filmed on the Mer de Glace beneath Mont-Blanc and above Argentiere in the Chamonix Valley, Haute-Savoie. The house on stilts by the river can be seen here 45°6′26.45″N 5°55′59.27″E.

Awards

The Crimson Rivers was nominated for five César Awards: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Editing, and Best Sound. It also received one European Film Awards nomination for Best Director and two nominations for Best Actor (Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel). It was also nominated for the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

External links

• The Crimson Rivers at the Internet Movie Database
• The Crimson Rivers at AllRovi
• The Crimson Rivers at Rotten Tomatoes