Well, the film is pretty good, it has good acting, excellent direction and very good dialogue. It aims a lot on symbolism and the viewer should observe not only the face of the actor who is talking, but also everything around him/her. Reactions of the other actors as well as the surrounding environment are important in realising what exactly is going on. There's also a lot about the flashback and imagination scenes. Bear in mind that when one of the actors is talking and there's a flashback at the same time, it's not necessarily a memory or the imagination of the talking character, it could be the memories or imagination of the one who listens. Flashbacks are also shown from the point of view of the one having it and are thus, coloured so, therefore they might not be the truth, but they can be just painted in emotion. All this leads us to understand more about the psyche of the people involved in this. Furthermore, the movie is not about the murders, but about relationships. The murders, although the centre of attention, are secondary. The primary thing one should focus is the marriage between Henry (Hackman) and Chantal (Belluci). I liked this very much, because it's not traditional Hollywood but it rather resembles more theatrical plays or dramatic novels. The people involved in this actually did a tremendous job. The film, although copying french film Garde de vue scene by scene, it's quite good (although I haven't seen the original 1981 film). Be warned though, the ending is very confusing and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. I don't usually like this in films to this extent (so that takes a few points off my rating), but I guess the director aimed at making the viewers think a lot about his movie. You shouldn't rush to hear other people's opinions in this and adapt them as your own but instead you should think out the motivation of Henry for doing what he did at the end and draw a conclusion by considering about what he talked throughout the movie.
***SPOILER*** If you wish to learn my conclusion on what exactly happened at the end read on, otherwise watch the movie and read it out after you have thought about your own conclusion.
Henry is feeling very lonely and depressed because of his wife being overjealous of him and thinking of him as some kind of a pervert, as she thought he was flirting with his niece. Henry vents this off by finding refuge in pornography and prostitutes, however he thinks (and I agree) that this does not make him a pervert since he has to vent off someway and instead of going around raping people or hitting his wife, he does this. However, he is ridden with guilt at doing it because he still loves his wife very much and would stop all this if she would just let him near her, not just sexually, but also emotionally. He wants children and his wife does not, both are fertile, but they lie to everyone else around them that they are both impotent and therefore can't have any. It's obvious his wife doesn't want children from the beginning, where Henry says he'd like a pet in the house but his wife denies him that, and from the fact that Henry is "adopting" his sister's-in-law children. Chantal's jealousy though denies him that as well and he is left alone, and that's where he starts venting off at alcohol, porn and prostitutes. The fact that he has prostitutes in dirty places is another indication of his guilt and his lies to the Captain (Freeman) are to cover up his "activities" because he himself is not comfortable about them. This makes Freeman extremely suspicious of him and his suspicions are passing on to Chantal, who already knows that Henry has taken pictures of the murdered girls, before they were murdered, as part of his collection for the culture of the city. Henry, having realised that Chantal has gone beyond suspicion into accusation, he gives up completely of having a functional marriage with her (since she is already accusing him of having "touched" her niece) and goes on to admit the murders, which serves to relief him of his own guilt, and also to give Chantal closure to move on with her life, because like any other man in love, he just wants her to be happy wherever she is. He doesn't care of the repercussions, but only cares about his wife to stop accusing him. When the murderer is found, in the middle of Henry's "confession", Chantal realises this and understands that Henry's speech was aimed at her, and that this man loves her and just wants to have a working family with her and not to touch children, as she thinks he does. She's overwhelmed with guilt and goes on a ledge thinking about suicide while Henry is being released, but decides instead to try and repair their marriage, so she goes back to meet him upon his release. They meet outside the station, but sit on separate benches (to show how far they are from each other) and then Henry leaves, as he feels disappointed at how she accused him of murdering two children. The ending of that is up to the viewer, whether Chantal goes after him and they repair their marriage, or if she stays on the bench and leaves on the opposite direction, and filing for divorce, as she wouldn't bear to look upon him now that she feels guilty about accusing him. Being a feel-good-ending guy, I believe they went ahead to repair their marriage, but again, that's up to each person's interpretation and I think the director/writer wanted to give the audience a lesson of how jealousy can bring forth illusions and fake accusations between two people and finally drive them apart, perhaps so apart that they can't repair their relationship anymore.
