RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA '12: Lucas Belvaux's 38 WITNESSES takes Kitty Genovese from Queens to France

Rendez-vous is huge this year, the largest array of films ever in the series 17 year history. Unless I miscounted, there are 42 films scheduled for Rendez-vous 2012 -- including, in a new sidebar called Rendez-vous +, recent documentaries and rarely screened "classics" (including a 1970s vampire movie by the recently-re-discoverd -- on these shores, at least -- Jean Rollin). Consequently, for the first time in at least a decade, yours truly will not have seen every film in the series. Sorry. Can't manage it. And I'd have to be in two placed at once to catch the "+" sidebar. But I have seen 17 of the films, which I'll report on now and in a post or two to come. Collectively, those 17 movies add up to one of, maybe the best Rendez-vous in my memory, regarding the high level and art and entertainment on view. Given what past years have brought us, this is saying something.

For TrustMovies' money, the film that cuts the deepest this year is Lucas Belvaux's 38 WITNESSES (38 Témoins), providing the height of art and entertainment via a surprising subject: the 1960s murder, here in Queens, New York, of Kitty Genovese, during which none of her neighbors, despite her screams, called the police or tried to help. Belvaux has updated his version to modern-day France and an upscale apartment building in a port city. Initially, the filmmaker's images of the sea and the port are stately and beautiful (the fine cinematography is by Pierric Gantelmi D'Ille).

We never see the actual murder; once past the sea and shore shots, the film begins with a young woman's body on the floor of the lobby of the apartment building and simply moves on from there,sparing us the actual in-the-moment killing. Instead, it's all about investigation -- by the police and by a smart, if cynical, journalist (Nicole Garcia, above, left) -- of why no one saw or heard anything. The film's focus is on the character played by that increasingly compelling actor Yvan Attal (above right, and below). At first it seems as if Attal, who seems distracted and very ill at ease, may have had something to do with the murder. As Belvaux's version proceeds, things proves nothing so simple or obvious.

The movie deals with guilt, shame and responsibility in ways that I have not heretofore seen handled this well. Belvaux and his cast, particularly Attal, make you experience the pain and shame like nothing else. The audience's keyhole and identification is provided via Sophie Quinton (remember Who Killed Bambi?), who plays Attal's wife and she is wonderful, too. The finale, which takes the shape of a reenactment of the crime, is one of the most riveting and profound pieces of cinema I've seen. It gives you exactly what you need to experience -- what the filmmaker wants you to feel and understand -- and it's harrowing, yet without a shred of exploitation or self-serving hypocrisy. This is an amazing movie, but so far as I know, it does not yet have U.S. distribution. Will someone step up to the plate, please?

38 Witnesses screens tonight, March 2, at 7pm at the IFC Center; Saturday, March 10 at 6:15 at the Walter Reade Theater and Sunday, March 11, at :1:30, again at the Walter Reade.

Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López and Yvan Attal power Catherine Corsini's LEAVING

A performance as stops-out, emotional and driven as any that Kristin Scott Thomas has ever given guides home LEAVING, the new film from French co-writer (with Gaëlle Macé) and director Catherine Corsini. We are most often used to seeing Ms Scott Thomas, shown at right and below, in buttoned-down roles, which she can handle with the best of them (and will do again next week, when the John-Lennon-as-a-teenager movie Nowhere Boy opens). It is something of a surprise, which then becomes a kind of joy, to watch this fine actress let go and give her all in the pursuit or a love that is clearly the most passionate her character has ever felt.

Those of us who've experienced this kind of all-out passion will perhaps nod and reflect (or maybe relive it a bit). Others who have not yet experienced this can only wonder at the level of emotion (which leads to some shocking actions) and either wish for something like this to befall them or be supremely grateful that it has not. Either way, thanks to a fine script that begins near the finale and circles back, the filmmaker crafts a movie of amazing immediacy that should leave you both jolted and thoughtful at its finale. Corsini chooses carefully the right steps to show how the affair takes off, together with the correct amount of detail to pull us in, build up a good deal of suspense but never sate us, and then tops off the script with alert direction that captures precise moments from this woman's work life, family life and lovemaking,

Ms Corsini (shown at left) has given us over the years a number of successful films -- La nouvelle Ève, La répétition, Les ambitieux, and now this one -- that remain interesting and exploratory, particularly where the role of woman is concerned (and by extension, man: With most filmmakers, especially men, it's the other way around). Corsini never excludes the guys. She gives them their due, as she does the attitudes and feelings of the teenage children involved. Yet it's the woman (or women) at the center of her stories that interests her most. And in all cases that TrustMovies has seen, she (together with the actresses involved) makes these women comes fully, sometimes alarmingly, alive.

Ms Scott Thomas has always been an actress to breathe great life into each of her roles. Last year, in I've Loved You So Long, even as a broken woman suddenly free after a long prison stint, she managed to radiate enough inner intensity to keep us enrapt. Here, as a relatively happy if somewhat bored housewife with a slightly too self-satisfied and controlling husband (the sex scenes between wife and husband and wife and lover bring this point home in spades), once she allows passion to have the upper hand, there's no turning back.

Casting Yvan Attal (above) as husband and Sergi López (below) as lover would seem to go against the natural grain of so many of their past performacnes.  Still, Attal was splendid as the controlling businessman/hubby in this past year's Rapt, and López, in his many villain roles from Sólo mía to last year's Ricky, always manages to add passion, strength and sometimes several dollops of caring to his creeps. In any case, the casting works beautifully, and both men register strongly and believably.

The film's ending should and will cause talk.  The movie ends, all right, but you certainly could't call it "wrapped up."  Or could you?  I'd love to talk to Ms Corsini about this....  In any case, Leaving is risky, thought-provoking movie-making.

Leaving, distributed via IFC Films, opens this Friday, October 1, at the IFC Center in NYC and will also be available from IFC On-Demand beginning October 27.  Click here to determine if you can get it in your area.