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After the feint of French neo-realism (Le Beau Serge), an onslaught of artifice for Claude Chabrol's dissection of the living-dead bourgeoisie. (Scrims and aquariums and mirrors are prevalent, the credits roll over a mesmerist's wheel in what seems to be an imploded Tashlin set.) A window slams open and the camera gazes out (the Renoir connection), the maid (Bernadette Lafont) in bra and panties teases the gardener with huge shears, the camera pulls back through a keyhole (the Clouzot connection). Aix-en-Provence in Eastmancolor, the sun-dappled vineyard accommodates a poisonous family plus a little Japanese cottage next door. Bliss for the paterfamilias (Jacques Dacqmine) is a field of Monet poppies with the puffy-mouthed ingénue (Antonella Lualdi), matriarch (Madeleine Robinson) is juxtaposed with a screeching peacock, son (André Jocelyn) conducts Berlioz and feels up little sister (Jeanne Valérie). The voracious moocher (Jean-Paul Belmondo) arrives in a nouvelle vague flurry, manners matter in this household—jump-cuts and overhead shots announce the murder, an ensuing scandal is the ongoing concern. "Love makes one do strange things..." Dovetailing perspectives compress the construction from morning to dusk, irrepressibly tragic and comic, the unfurled sweater and the shattered reflection. "Sordid insects" on colored glass are the Chabrol specialty, high-toned vipers huddled around the dinner table on a zigzagging floor. Belmondo on his way to the À Bout de Souffle set precipitates the necessary rupture, riotously drunk at the parade or the bare-assed before his fiancée, between the opposite poles lies the girl literally too lovely to live. ("Il a assassiné beauté," the ultimate crime.) The muddy river receives the confession, a bit of illumination is enough at the end of the day. Cinematography by Henri Decaë. With László Szabó, André Dino, and Mario David.
--- Fernando F. Croce |