The Ring Finger

Introduction

Iris (Olga Kurylenko) was working in a bottle factory on a production line until an industrial accident led to the loss of the top of one of her fingers. Aged 20, broke and unable to support herself, she's searching for work and somewhere to live and ends up in a shipyard trying in vain to get work on a ship. A stroke of luck puts her on a room sharing basis in a hotel with a sailor who works nights, and so the two never meet as they continue to miss each other.

A chance ferry ride, and the tailing of a strange man on said ferry, leads Olga to a mysterious laboratory ran by a man known only as L'homme du laboratoire (Marc Barbé). The lab is looking for a receptionist and Iris apparently fits the bill. The lab sees a steady stream of clients who all bring in possessions that they require to be preserved, all very different and all very personal.



One young girl has brought in a couple of mushrooms to be preserved, they grew on the ruins of her burned house; a tragic place where she lost everything (and it's stated simply as that without further elaboration). A shoe shiner brings in the bones of his pet bird as he lives in a flat and can't bury him. A woman brings in the score of some music that her ex-boyfriend wrote for her on her birthday. All these specimens are to be logged, labelled and preserved and all the clients are gushingly appreciative of the preservation of their specimens despite very few ever coming back to view them.

Things get a little stranger, but oddly liberating, when her new boss requests that she wear a pair of red high heels that he presents to her. Seemingly oblivious to the effect this has on her, Iris finds herself drawn into a world where she becomes both drawn to her employer but also freer in the process.

Visual

Very nicely framed film by Alain Duplantier, and whilst it's nothing particularly special, it looks gorgeous with a very lived-in look and feel to the piece.

Audio

Stunning melancholic soundtrack from Portishead's Beth Gibbons, it really deserves a surround sound soundtrack to really do it justice though. The 2.0 Stereo soundtrack is fine for the film itself, which isn't sound effects heavy or overly burdened with dialogue so the score is allowed time to breathe.

Overall

I have to say that not much really happens in this film but conversely, so much does. The dialogue is sparse and much of the plot is based on the almost silent and brooding chemistry between Kurylenko and Barbé. Barbé's character never explains himself and you never really get an understanding of what work he is doing or why the lab does what it does; in the end it doesn't matter and you don't dwell on this as the film meanders towards it's open ended conclusion.

What I like about this film is that it explains nothing and as a viewer, you really need to know nothing. You very quickly accept what is happening and because you're encouraged to think about Iris and what she is going through, you don't dwell on the mysteries of the plot. It's simply unimportant in the end. Obviously Miss Kurylenko is a nice on-screen distraction, especially when appearing au naturale, but whilst these sequences look very nicely photographed and arty, they never feel as if they're there for the sake of it. The chemistry between Barbé and Kurylenko is quite powerful as well, discrete touch and facial expression conveying all you need to understand in a sensual way.



There's a lot of subtext to this film, and the focus appears to be on personal freedom and letting go. The specimens, in the only exposition of the film, are brought in by the clients in order for them to feel separation, preservation and closure. The same thing is happening to Iris, but she doesn't know it yet. The red shoes are the trigger for the changes she needs to make and despite a warning that the snugly fitting shoes will take possession of her feet, she willingly wears them to take her on a journey of self-discovery and liberation; which sounds a bit gushing, I know, but oddly the film just had that kind of effect on me. There is sex and hints of sex in this film, but don't judge the film by the cover as you'll get the wrong idea entirely, it's not about the sex at all and there's very little of it. It's about acceptance and release from whatever burdens we carry, which are all symbolised by something - in Iris' case, her ring finger that was sliced in an accident.

I really liked this, much much more than I thought I would.