Mark of an Angel

There'll probably be an inferior American remake of this at some point, infinitely blander and cliched, so see the French original while you can. The viewer is cannily led to doubt the sanity of Elsa when she becomes obsessed with the idea that 7 year old Lola is in fact her own daughter who died as a baby in a hospital fire. Conversational hints point to a woman already psychologically disturbed and it now appears that she's slipping into stalking the child and her family, and possibly much worse. Just when the plot seems to be following a predictable, if stylish, route, events take an unexpected turn. Lola's mother is suddenly captured doing similar actions in similar shots to those of Elsa earler in the film. She seems to be behaving just as irrationally as Elsa. Luckily this isn't Hollywood so there's no abrupt histrionics. The unsettling set pieces peak with a subtly menacing ballet performance but ultimately there's no psycho, no violence (OK, just a teensy bit), just the revelation of a devastating moral choice that gains it's impact from the restraint elsewhere.