Glamorous and colorful comedy, “Pauline detective” propels Sandrine Kiberlain into an Italian palace, where she sets out in the footsteps of a serial killer. A feature film that fully embraces its extremely varied inspirations.
Pauline detective : the woman who knew too little
Frustrated with his short collaboration with Sandrine Kiberlain on his first film Artist’s life, Marc Fitoussi decides to write him a more consistent role with Pauline detective. That of a journalist of various facts who, on the eve of the summer holidays, is dumped by her companion. While her sentimental happiness is shattered, the heroine can count on the support of her sister Jeanne (Audrey Lamy).
The latter, actress in a successful series, offers him to enjoy a stay by his side in an Italian palace. An establishment around which a serial killer gravitates. And from her first nights spent at the hotel, the budding detective is convinced that the killer is rampant in the hallways.
As a result of’a dubious death and finding several disturbing signs, she begins to investigate. To gather clues, she asks for help from the attractive Simone (Claudio Santamaria), beach attendant and animator who does not leave her indifferent.
Michèle Moretti, Wladimir Yordanoff, Anne Benoît and Antoine Chappey complete the cast of this comedy released in 2012. A colorful and catchy feature film that fully assumes its influences.
From Alfred Hitchcock to the Pink Library …
Introducing a character supposed to return in a sequel, since shelved, Pauline detective claims its soap opera side on its final box. A peculiarity that he inherits from the adventures of Ghost or The Five Club, emblematic heroes of the Pink and Green Libraries.
Through his saturated colors and his costumes, Marc Fitoussi also wants to get closer to the golden age of Hollywood, but also to certain icons of American cinema. He thus states, quoted by Allocine :
I had fun using technical effects that are the opposite of today’s 3D: iris closures, split-screens, zooms, whirlwind image appearances. (…) Pauline and her sister are glamorous, they never stop wearing outfits that Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly would not have disowned. (…) When she goes to the beach, Pauline wears as if by chance a dress whose blue matches perfectly with the bath towels.
“Very typical” outfits which also evoke the details provided to certain protagonists novels by Agatha Christie. Finally, in its humor, its dynamism and its way of presenting an endearing duo, the film is in line with essential popular entertainment such as Charade Where The man from Rio.
Inspired performance
For her interpretation of this inexhaustible, playful, talkative and sometimes execrable heroine with her interlocutors – for the greatest pleasure of the spectator, Sandrine Kiberlain finds the tone by drawing inspiration from several cult performances. His elegance and his repartee foolproof, for example, seem to come out ofa classic of screwball comedy. The actress does not hide her admiration for Katharine Hepburn, especially in the fabulous The Impossible Mister Baby. Asked for the show Free entry, she specifies about her influences:
We had references in our heads like (Catherine) Deneuve in The wild who talks non-stop, who argues, who is in very bad faith, (…) who does not give the other the opportunity to respond. Oddly in a much less funny thing it was Hitchcock. Ingrid Bergman in The Chained. (…) Because in Pauline there is this very glamorous side that we are rarely given the opportunity to act and reach in the cinema in France.
A glamorous aspect that works on screen, in part thanks to the very successful composition of the headliner.
