Les Traducteurs (from here henceforth The Translators) is the latest instalment from writer/director Regis Roinsard. The film forays into bilingual obscurities and deterritorialized mysteries which prove that this whodunit is internationally enjoyable and palatable. The film has outstanding performances from Alex Lawther and Lambert Wilson to name only two.

Angstrom Publishing has made its name and money through the fictive Daedalus trilogy. The film revolves around the third and final instalment of this international best seller. The book, as alluded to in the film, has a cultish-out-of-this-world following and the stakes are high. A simultaneous translation is to take place in the apocalypse bunker of a Russian oligarch. The nine translators, handpicked, have two months to translate the story, twenty pages at a time, into their respected languages. When the book’s first ten pages get released online and the ‘hacker’ demands a ransom, Eric (Lambert Wilson) head of Angstrom Publishing has limited time to resolve the issue, save his company, and, with all the suspects at his disposal, find the hacker.

The film sets up as a classic whodunit without a detective to sniff out clues – the missing character types are found within the book that the film centres around. In the real-world the translators are left to tear themselves and each other apart with paranoia and suspicion as the quest for truth unfolds within and outside the book. Roinsard has disassociated these two themes of the whodunit and focused on the gritty, disturbing, and revelatory aspect of the human condition when faced with adversary and deceit. A deluge of the usual characters appears in the film; Katrina (Olga Kurylenko) as the femme fatale, Dario (Riccardo Scamarcio) as the passionate Italian and Alex (Alex Lawther) as the drunk brit among other typical tropes. Although typical tropes sound bad, it actually presents the film as a Cluedo-esque landscape where we know the flawed traits of each character already, don’t we Colonel Mustard?

The strings are being pulled by publisher turned madman Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson) who hounds the translators in search of the truth. Yet, is the puppeteer merely a puppet? A palimpsest of accusations and possible avenues play out on screen which eventually turn a dark corner and come to a teetering halt when Helene Tuxen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) hangs herself out of desperation. We can count her out then, right? At this juncture of the film, we may expect to see the madness end, but the chaos is just about to get going. With what is a far-out scenario we must only expect a grand finale and it’s what we get.

After a Parisian heist scene, the film is concluded with a confession, and all is made clear to the audience through jumps back and forth in time between the confession and the madness of the translation bunker – the secrets are slowly revealed.

The film is dark and enticing, it keeps you fixated. It is cleverly worked, and it is hard to find chinks in the armour.

Director: Régis Roinsard
Writers: Romain Compingt, Daniel Presley, Régis Roinsard
Stars: Lambert Wilson, Olga Kurylenko, Riccardo Scamarcio
William Rotherforth
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