Ecoute Le Temps (12A)

This French murder-mystery takes off from an intriguing premise. A young sound engineer (Emilie Dequenne) learns that her estranged mother – a local clairvoyant – has been killed, and returns to the house in the village where she lived and died. She decides to record the creaks and groans of the dilapidated farmhouse, but then, picking up the sounds of voices from her mother's past, begins piecing together the events leading up to her murder. We are seemingly drawn into a French take on Coppola's The Conversation as writer-director Alanté Kavaïté plays spooky games with sound and perception, but having set up its line of murder suspects the film sheers off into supernatural hokum and never really recovers. A shame, because it promised more.