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Dec 13, 2014Nursebob rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
The precocious son of a French diplomat stationed in London has his innocence eroded by the lies and secrets told to him by his adult caretakers. With his parents away, little Phillipe treats the enormous embassy in which he lives as one big playground; his only adult contacts being the kind-hearted butler Baines, and Baines’ wife, a severe and unhappy woman who rules Phillipe’s life with an iron fist. Finding solace in Baines’ friendship, Phillipe tags after the man whenever he can, even sneaking outside to follow him on his rounds. One day the child happens upon his friend getting cozy with the house stenographer at a local cafe and thus finds himself entrusted with the first of many lies. Convincing Phillipe that the woman is in fact a niece whom his wife cannot stand, Baines swears the boy to secrecy, even sealing the deal with ice cream and a trip to the zoo. It isn’t long however before the mentally unstable Mrs. Baines catches wind of the affair and a bewildered Phillipe suddenly finds himself at the centre of an emotional storm he cannot understand. But when a heated argument between Mrs. Baines and her husband ends up with her lying dead at the bottom of a staircase Phillipe, the sole witness to the altercation, discovers that telling “the truth” is far trickier than he imagined. Did he actually see a murder being committed or, as Baines’ conflicting testimony insists, nothing more than a tragic accident? Carol Reed’s knee-high noir thriller uses an impressionable child to highlight the fabrications and half-truths adults utilize to either get what they want, or avoid that which they don’t. Filmed through a kid’s eyes with meticulous attention to the interplay of light and shadow, Reed presents us with some strikingly images; an elusive game of hide-and-seek toys with our perceptions, a nighttime journey through the streets of London takes on a nightmarish quality, and a wee pet snake becomes a metaphor of biblical proportions. As he peers down at the adult world below him, usually from the vantage point of a bannister or balcony window, Phillipe’s observations on the contradictory nature between words and actions lends him a childlike wisdom which is both comforting and ultimately unsettling. An ironic coda wherein a truthful confession goes largely unheeded provided the perfect capstone.