Science fiction is not a genre in which French cinema dabbles to any great extent although it does have a fine tradition of horreur as in Les Diaboliques and Les Jeux sans visage which are distant relatives of Chrysalis as both deal with death in one form or another; a death that isn't really a death on the one hand and the idea of 'rebuilding' broken bodies on the other. Here we have parallel stories. Futuristic (2020) cop David Hoffman, sees both his wife and his female partner killed in front of him and sets out to nail the two brothers responsible. At the same time a highly successful female surgeon is driving the car is which her daughter is killed and is bent on reviving her in her state-of-the- art clinic. Oh, I almost forgot, there's a machine involved and it's capable of erasing people's memories of if this were a James Bond movie SMERSH or SCEPTRE or both would be after it but we have to be content with smaller fry. There are two exceptional fist-fights (for which Dupontel insisted on doing his own fighting) of the kind that after ninety seconds tops one or both of the fighters would be dead and/or comatose but instead, natch, they keep at it for four or five minutes. Watchable but Dupontel has done far better stuff in this line, like The prey.
Review of Chrysalis
