Why Are You Doing This?

The Norwegian French master of the noir graphic novel deploys a more-or-less full palette, albeit very tonally subdued (don't expect blood reds or sky blues), and several panels whose perspectives are as much as 30 degrees from the horizontal (hitherto a rarity in his work) to tell a story that an only slightly less gloomy David Goodis might have written. Alex is in seriously dumped condition. His friend Claude shows up to ask him to water the plants while he's out of town. He does and one time sees a man in the apartment across the street. When Claude gets back, Alex goes to see him, only to wind up framed for murder and on the run. A woman shopkeeper recognizes him, believes his story, and takes him to her place. The pair fall in love as Alex sleuths his own case. Things just might work out, but . . . Jason's tall, thin, expressionally limited, animal-headed figures seem downright Bogey-and-Baby-ish in this ever-so-satisfying, archetypal exercise in romantic fatalism.