Genealogies of a Crime

René kills Jeanne because he has been psychologically manipulated through years of her controversial therapy methods. Jeanne used the role-reversal game to train René, deliberately cultivating his violent impulses. She essentially programmed him to kill her, which Solange discovers through her investigation of Jeanne's diaries. When René awakens from Georges Didier's disturbing ceremony, he discovers Jeanne's body, having been manipulated into杀掉她 as she had intended.

Jeanne's diary entries reveal she intentionally trained René through their role-reversal games, suggesting she orchestrated her own death.

Solange agrees to take René's case because she is compelled by the complexity of the situation and her own psychological profile. After losing her son Pascal, she receives a call from colleague Mathieu informing her that René blames Jeanne for his crimes. Intrigued by this unusual case and perhaps drawn to what she describes as hopeless cases, Solange takes it on despite her track record of losing every case she's handled.

At Pascal's funeral, Solange is introduced to Georges Didier, suggesting her entry into the psychoanalytic world that surrounds René.

The role-reversal game is a psychological therapeutic technique used by Jeanne to treat René, where participants switch roles to reveal deeper truths about their psyche. Jeanne uses this game throughout René's childhood to understand and treat his violent tendencies. The game becomes central to the film's themes of perpetrator and victim blurring, as it allows Jeanne to manipulate René into becoming capable of killing her. René enjoys this game, and it serves as the mechanism through which Jeanne trains him to commit murder.

Early scenes show Jeanne using the role-reversal game on young René, establishing it as her primary treatment method.

Jeanne's diary, which Solange reads, provides crucial evidence. The diary reveals that Jeanne deliberately used the role-reversal game to train René, fostering his violent impulses rather than curing them. After catching René stealing furniture, Jeanne shoots him in the arm during a heated session of the game, her last diary entry documents this event. Solange theorizes that Jeanne deliberately cultivated René's homicidal tendencies, making her death a form of calculated suicide through proxy.

Jeanne's diary entries throughout René's childhood show her noting his violent behavior and fascination with knives while continuing the same treatment methods.

Georges Didier is the eccentric leader of the Franco-Belgian Psychoanalytic Society who manipulates René through a disturbing experimental ceremony. This tableau vivant involves blindfolded participants recreating a classical painting, which is meant to trigger psychological responses. Georges conducts this experiment on René while he is hospitalized after a suicide attempt. René claims that upon awakening from this ceremony, he panicked and discovered Jeanne's body, suggesting Georges' ritual triggered or manipulated him into killing her.

At Jeanne's funeral, Georges is introduced with his quick temper and reliance on a notebook, immediately signaling his unconventional and potentially dangerous nature.

The Franco-Belgian Psychoanalytic Society commits mass suicide after René is acquitted of Jeanne's murder. The scandal of the trial exposes the society's unethical practices and manipulations, destroying their reputation. The mass suicide represents the collapse of their collective sanity, as the organization cannot survive the exposure of their experiments and the corruption within their ranks.

The society's bizarre ceremonies and experiments on René foreshadow their willingness to go to extreme lengths, culminating in their collective destruction.

Solange murders René and his friends because their relationship became toxic and abusive after René is acquitted. Her mother Louise had revealed that Solange herself exhibited sociopathic behaviors as a child, suggesting she has suppressed violent tendencies. The culmination of trauma, losing her son, discovering the manipulation surrounding Jeanne's death, and enduring René's abusive relationship, triggers Solange to act on her own suppressed violent impulses, completing the cycle of violence that began with Jeanne and René.

Louise's revelation about Solange's childhood sociopathic behavior foreshadows her potential for violence, which manifests at the film's climax.

The Chinese fable about a young man who kills a woman from the Liu Bao family, only to be killed after falling in love with her ghost, parallels the film's exploration of obsession, memory, and psychological unraveling. The fable establishes themes of lethal love, the supernatural blending with reality, and the cyclical nature of violence. This narrative device foreshadows the complex relationships between René, Jeanne, and ultimately Solange, where love, manipulation, and death become intertwined.

The fable is told by a narrator at the film's opening, setting the tone for the entire narrative of obsession and death.

René attempts suicide after being accused of murdering his aunt Jeanne. This suicide attempt occurs while he is hospitalized, and it prompts Georges Didier to conduct his experimental tableau vivant ceremony on René. The attempt suggests René's psychological fragility and guilt, though his mental state is complicated by years of Jeanne's manipulation and the ongoing psychoanalytic experiments.

The film opens with René disposing of a knife, hinting at his turbulent relationship with violence throughout his life.

Solange theorizes that Jeanne deliberately trained René to kill her, making her death a form of self-sacrifice or assisted suicide. She believes Jeanne used the role-reversal game to cultivate René's violent impulses over years of treatment, essentially programming him to become her killer. This theory is supported by Jeanne's diary entries showing her intentional manipulation, and it reframes Jeanne as both perpetrator and victim.

Jeanne's final diary entry documents her shooting René in the arm during a role-reversal game, suggesting her active participation in the cycle of violence.