“Kompromat” (M) ****

“KOMPROMAT” is a portmanteau of “compromising” and “material” borrowed into Russian from English.

In director and writer Jérôme Salle’s film allegedly based on a book by Yoann Barbereau, Gilles Lellouche plays Mathieu, gregarious, dedicated, director of the local branch of the Alliance Française in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. 

Local Russian Federal Security Service (formerly known as KGB) chief Rostov (Michael Gor) accuses Mathieu of distributing kiddie-porn photographs. 

Arrested, imprisoned and isolated, Mathieu has nowhere to turn. Defending himself is impossible, the French authorities are helpless – his only choice is to try and escape. In this, he has help from Svetlana (Joanna Kulig) whose disabled husband isn’t up to the task.

Mathieu may spend more of the film’s 127 minutes fleeing, trying to reach safety in Estonia, with Rostov hot on his heels than is essential for making its dramatic point. It may dally on sequences showing Mathieu and Svetlana’s love-making. But sequences in the prison community and the tensions as the pair eventually flee are truly frightening. 

Some might consider that director Salle is trying too hard to avoid giving his audience a routine flavour, but the film’s cool delivery definitely increases its power. 

It may not strike everybody as great cinema but nobody could deny that it hits its target squarely.

At Palace Electric