Le carnaval des vérités

Beneath the gaslit opulence of a Belle-Époque seaside town, the Countess de Marnac—part serpent, part siren—glides through mirrored corridors where every reflection lies. She and her poet-lover Vellini have stitched a poisoned tapestry: they will inflame the timid millionaire Raphaël with longing for the dewy ingénue Héloïse, then squeeze his fortune once desire curdles into shame. Yet the scheme unspools like a dropped spool of scarlet silk; Héloïse’s candor refracts through the plot like a prism, splitting certainties into spectral doubts. Rooms tilt, masks slip, and the carnival masks of truth and falsehood swap faces until even the camera itself seems to breathe with guilty conscience. When the final confetti of banknotes drifts across a deserted ballroom, the only victor is the merciless mirror that has watched every kiss curdle into betrayal.