An original whose twists are on the inside
If Hollywood ever does a remake of “Moka,” it will be much different from the French original about a grieving mother who hunts down the couple she thinks is responsible for her son’s unsolved hit-and-run death.
You could rightly call it a thriller, but a slow-burning one, and a film that’s driven by character, not plot points. And that won’t do in Tinseltown. So enjoy the original, preferably in a theater, and revel in the rich, layered performances of veteran actresses Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye (men are incidental in this movie, another Hollywood no-no).
Diane (Devos) is a writer living in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her son was killed a few months ago in Evian, France, a short ferry ride across Lake Geneva from Lausanne. Frustrated with the slow pace of the investigation on the part of the French police, Diane has hired a private investigator who turns up a promising lead — an eyewitness who saw a couple speeding away from the accident scene in a classic, coffeecolored Mercedes.
That leads Diane to Marlene (Baye), a beauty shop owner in Evian, and her partner Michel (David Clavel). Their 1972 Mercedes fits the description, has front-end damage and, suspiciously, is for sale. Diane becomes a customer and strikes up a “friendship” with Marlene; meanwhile, without Marlene’s knowledge, she becomes an active bidder for the Mercedes, a sale being handled by Michel.
Oh, and Diane, who has ensconced herself in an Evian hotel as this plays out, also buys a gun on the black market.
Director Frédéric Mermoud keeps things moving smoothly, but happily he seems more interested in exploring Diane’s grief and her struggle to understand who her son was and could have been rather than the tired twists and turns we’ve come to expect from the modern thriller.
And although the movie is built around Devos’ performance, Baye makes her scenes count. Beneath her elegant exterior, her Marlene, it seems, is barely holding it together. She is at odds with her rebellious daughter, and suspects Michel, 13 years her junior, of cheating.
“We’re all looking for the same thing — attention,” Marlene tells Diane.
Diane tells Marlene that she often has difficulty finding the courage to act.
“Maybe that’s why you write — you don’t dare in real life,” Marlene responds. If she only knew. One particularly interesting element of “Moka” is Diane’s fascination with the Mercedes. It is, after all, the instrument of her son’s death. It is also a witness. It is the last thing to see her son alive. Devos makes you feel that every time she sits in the car, or examines its exterior.
Maybe she feels a kinship to the car in another way. She, too, is aging gracefully, in pretty good shape. But definitely a bit damaged.