Northwest Film Forum

Is the man lying or not? With Robbe–Grillet, it is impossible to tell, and probably beside the point. Boris Varissa, the Kafkaesque protagonist played by Jean–Louis Trintingant, arrives in a small town that is in mourning for a local resistance hero, Jean Robin, who disappeared before the end of the war and is presumed dead. No one recognizes Boris, though he claims to have been Jean’s assistant and savior. Boris adjusts his tales of his relationship with the fallen hero to the listener, and his stories increasingly take on the quality of myth. Of course, Robbe–Grillet devotes plenty of time to the erotic—Boris enjoys the sexual pleasures of several women during their time of mourning, and watches a lesbian affair between maid and sister –and ends all narrative certainty with a time–tried device that might leave you agog. The Man Who Lies was written for Trintingant, who won the Best Actor award at the Berlin film festival, where the film also won the award for Best Screenplay.