WCS 2006
The Beat My Heart Skipped | Reviewed by Catherine Bisley

BASED ON the 1978 film Fingers and directed by Jacques Audiard, The Beat My Heart Skipped is well worth a look this coming World Cinema Showcase. Set in the dark underbelly of Paris, the narrative follows Thomas (Roman Duris), a young real estate thug, as he rediscovers his passion for playing the piano after a chance encounter with his dead mother’s agent (she was a concert pianist). As his love for the piano moves into obsession he loses the small amount of control he had in his life; he begins sleeping with his business partner’s wife and skips meetings you don’t want to miss if you’re into corruption.

The script is witty and punchy: “You gonna sit there all day staring at me like a mutt?” Driven by Thomas’ character, other plots dip in and out of focus; if you are one of these people who need to identify with a character to enjoy a film, you may struggle to connect with Thomas’ rampant ego. I was suddenly brought round. To be playing Bach and freeze on a passage you’ve played a million times before is a traumatic experience.


Audiard’s previous film, the brilliant Read My Lips, successfully adopted a highly stylised visual and aural design based around the fact that the protagonist was deaf. The Beat My Heart Skipped begins with a long take, in which a hand held camera navigates a conversation on father son relationships. While the film successfully explores a range of interesting relationships, such as that between Thomas and his Chinese piano teacher, it lacks stylistic restraint and at times verges on being visually incoherent. While Roman Duris gives a compelling performance it is not always convincing and does not provide a bind that would allow for such discrepancies.

The soundtrack features music which is good, bad, and at times even ugly. In the beginning one is subjected not only to techno music, but also the embarrassing finger thrusting, head nodding, and other testy macho moves that Thomas indulges in when he listens to it. Just when you think you can’t bear it any longer he meets the agent and starts listening to Mozart sonatas, Brahms rhapsodies and Chopin nocturnes. The sound design is well realised, especially the mixing of diagetic and non-diagetic sound. In a moment of brilliance worthy of Read My Lips, poor immigrant workers who have chosen the wrong apartment to squat in are beaten up to the dulcet tones of Kylie Minogue’s Locomotion.

» The Beat My Heart Skipped @ World Cinema Showcase 2006