Lucie Champagne is given the role of the victim, in a film of a true, unsolved murder. <BR>&nbsp;

Lucie Champagne is given the role of the victim, in a film of a true, unsolved murder.

With The Polygraph, Quebec-based filmmaker Robert Lepage has made a handsome, intriguing film after his 1995 debut, Le Confessional. The Polygraph, or The Lie Detector - has as its centrepiece the murder of a woman - Marie-Clare - twelve months ago. The principle suspect, her boyfriend Fran?ois - Patrick Goyette - is living in an agonising state of doubt after inconclusive results from a police lie-detector test. Francois` neighbour is Lucy - Marie Brassard - who`s just landed the role of Marie-Clare in a film version of the murder. Lucy is having an affair with a pathologist, Christof played by Peter Stormare, a refugee from from East Germany. Francois, a waiter at a posh restaurant and part -time student, is doing his thesis on cultural alienation and loss of identity in political exile. The various interconnecting circles are in place... Although it is impressively directed by Lepage and beautifully shot by his cinematographer Guy Dufaux, you`re left at the end with rather a feeling of let-down. Where does this examination of the elusiveness of truth actually lead us? - not to anywhere really satisfactory, but at the same time, getting to nowhere in particular with Lepage is a tantalising experience. Marie Brassard who plays the central role of Lucy is a close colleague of Lepage - she co-wrote the screenplay with him and Michael McKenzie ... Patrick Goyette had a central role in Le Confessional - and Peter Stormare, who once acted under Ingmar Bergman`s direction on stage in Sweden you`ll remember from Fargo. Maria De Madeiros plays Fran?ois` former girlfriend Claude; they`re all excellent.... but the idea of much style and less substance tends to linger with this film.