“Desire when they lost their
savage qualities becomes aspirations.”
There is beast in all of us but it’s
too ambiguous to interpret and analyze it from surface layer; one has to watch
and if possible re-watch this French masterpiece to witness and ponder the
subtlety behind it. Regarded as one of the best Chabrol, the film allowed to merge two genres that conventionally exclude each other- it's a love story with a serial killer. The film brought two most
unlikely courting couple on screen. Paul is a sadist butcher cum serial killer. He is either psychologically tormented by tragedy of war or by her unfulfilled sexual frustration. Helen is a single and repressed school headmistress trying to recuperate her lost love
in company of children. Set in provincial French town,a trademark Chabrol, the
film juxtaposed the psychology of crime and love between these two lead
characters and it’s a thing to witness how Chabrol brilliantly maintained psychological
ambiguity of both lead characters in many scenes. This subtle and fascinating
account of psychological thriller is also moving love story of two lonely souls
to ponder about. It begins and burns slow like any of Chabrolian flavor and
established itself with more firm ground that starts intriguing you after half
an hour inside the film and it changes the whole perception towards its climax
just like any of his best films. That end with zoomed blinking red light of
elevator is something just unforgettable!
Having watched many of Chabrol
films, I must say this with conviction that he’s is one of that director who
borrowed the props from Hitchcock and than surpasses him by giving them not
only his original touch but also changing the whole perspective and perception
of psychological thrill-drama. No, it’s not typical whodunit crime thrill to
look forward in his films, but something beyond that trait and that is the
fuming untold internal drama of the characters that makes watching his films a
treat. Infact, this is one of that Chabrol film that demands a repeat watch for
this and many other sheer reasons including brilliant chemistry between his
default screen and real life muse Stephane Audran and Jean Yanne, who played
another terrific topnotch performance in Chabrol’s ‘This Man Must Die’.
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