Posted: Mon., May. 27, 1996, 11:00pm PT

Fourbi

By Derek Elley

Fourbi (Swiss-French -- Drama-- Color) A Filmograph (Geneva)/Noe Prods. (Paris) production, in association with Television Suisse Romande, Fonds Culturel Suissimage. (International sales: Christa Saredi, Zurich.) Produced by Alain Tanner. Directed by Alain Tanner. Screenplay, Tanner, Bernard Comment.

Rosemonde ... Karin Viard Paul ... Jean-Quentin Chatelain Marie ... Cecile Tanner Pierrot ... Antoine Basler Kevin ... Robert Bouvier The sponsor ... Jed Curtis Paul's father ... Maurice Aufair Paul's mother ... Michele Gleizer Stage tutor ... Andre Steiger (French dialogue) Veteran Swiss auteur Alain Tanner recycles an old idea to largely blah returns in "Fourbi," a reverie on the contempo media's vampiric obsession with reality-based fiction that runs round in circles without going anyplace special. Headlined by an interesting perf from French actress Karin Viard as a working-class killer whose story is seized upon by a commercial TV station, the pic won't do much to restore Tanner's already marginalized Euro arthouse rep.

Film starts out with intriguing parallels to Tanner's second feature, the Bulle Ogier starrer "The Salamander" (1971), in which a young, introverted working-class woman was accused of murder and the truth of the event was debated by the media. The equivalent character here is Rosemonde (Viard), who works part time in a Geneva bar. Six years earlier she killed a man who tried to rape her, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Looking for product prior to startup, a new TV station commissions an indie production house headed by Kevin (Robert Bouvier) to make a TV movie fictionalizing Rosemonde's story. Kevin hires his cynical friend Paul (Jean-Quentin Chatelain) to research and write the script after Rosemonde has signed up, but Paul doesn't get very far in his initial interviews. Rosemonde simply refuses to discuss the event.

Paul's solution is to hire a former girlfriend, aspiring legit actress Marie (Cecile Tanner), to get to know Rosemonde, with the promise of giving her the lead role when the movie is made. Initially leery of the serious young thesp, Rosemonde still clams up, but gradually the two women establish a rapport, each attempting to understand the other's lifestyle. Paul, meanwhile, gets it on with Rosemonde while her partner, Pierrot (Antoine Basler), is out of town.

Though the social and educational chasm between the two women is never really bridged, Marie has a go at waitressing and Rosemonde tries to master rhyming alexandrine couplets. Eventually, however, they both face the fact that the movie is a nonstarter, and at the same time the TV station pulls out of the project and demands its money back.

While the ideas of a growing relationship between two women from different backgrounds and a lightly satirical look at the contempo commercial media are hardly new, there's still enough raw material here to fuel a decent little movie. But aside from clogging up the script with wordy, go-nowhere scenes reminiscent of '70s Euro art movies, Tanner also fails to develop any of the characters much beyond their starting positions.

Rosemonde remains a gruff, easygoing, unambitious enigma, and Marie a borderline-pretentious actress in love with the ideals of her profession. As the former, the flavorsome Viard has her moments but is constrained by an underwritten part; as the latter, Cecile Tanner comes over as alternately sympathetic and annoying. Neither woman is given background in any way, especially not Rosemonde, and only in a few sequences together (such as a day spent walking round the city) do the pair establish much screen chemistry.

In fact, the most charismatic character is Paul, a mercurial pragmatist who delightedly tells Marie that her big break is being sponsored by a dog food company, and whose main ambition seems to be to get inside Rosemonde's pants. This is undoubtedly part of the film's message, but it's ironic that in such a high-toned movie the forces of mammon should be repped with more personality than those of art and the common man. (The title is actually the name of Rosemonde's mongrel mutt, which seems to represent the bastardized cultural soup beloved by today's media.)

Tanner maintains his usual emotional distance but manages to keep the pic moving, with lots of gliding camerawork and attractive locations, and Michel Wintsch's Philip Glass-like score gives the film some resonance in the early going. At base, however, it's much ado about very little.

Camera (color), Denis Jutzeler; editor, Monica Goux; music, Michel Wintsch; sound, Henri Maikoff, Alain Garnier; assistant director, Pascal Maguin; associate producers, Frederique Dumas, Marc Baschet, Michel Mavros; line producer, Gerard Ruey. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), May 10, 1996. Running time: 116 min.