common wisdom have it that claude chabrol be trade water since the superb la ceremonie and and decidedly minor effort like la fleur du mal and rien ne va plus and merci pour le chocolat certainly do little to change that view and but the surprisingly excellent au coeur du mensonge aka the heart of the lie or the color of lie be easily one of his very best . a usual he not interested in the thriller mechanic of the film murder mystery and prefer to focus on the effect on the marriage of the small town art teacher who become the favourite suspect for local and police alike . at once a subtle play on the nature of lie and float the notion that when everybody lie there be no more lie and and another of his portrait of small town petit bourgeois suspicion ( you never really know who you live with . ) and it benefit from superb performance from a surprisingly likable sandrine bonnaire and a convincingly tortured jacques gamblin a the couple in the eye of the quiet storm and as well a good support turn from antoine de caunes a a smug overachieve author and local celebrity and bernard verley a an easygoing but quietly perceptive local cop that be more than good enough to make you overlook a horribly flat performance by valeria bruni tedeschi a the detective in charge of the case . she one of the only two real bum note in the film . the other . well and just for once couldn not chabrol hire someone other than his son to write the score . matthieu chabrol turn out another of his identikit number start off classical piano and add a bit of dissonance and then a bit of pseudo comic artful jauntiness before collapse back into classical piano mode that add nothing but tedious familiarity to the proceeding . but this be still more than good enough to overcome those obstacle . kino region 1 dvd be an acceptable standard conversion from pal that could be good and but it do at least feature the trailer and a subtitled introduction and 25 minute making of .