![]() |
Véra Clouzot and Simeone Signoret plot murder in twisty thriller Les Diaboliques |
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Cast: Simeone Signoret (Nicole Horner), Véra Clouzot
(Christina Delassalle), Paul Meurisse (Michel Delassalle), Charles Vanel
(Alfred Fichet), Jean Brochard (Plantivaeu), Pierre Larquery (Drain), Michel
Serrault (Raymond)
Clouzot is one of those fine directors, less prominent today in
the list of the great artists of cinema. This might be because, unlike some of his
contemporaries, many of his films were unashamed thrillers, Hitchcockian suspense
tales, rather than the serious, artistic films we associate with French cinema.
Les Diaboliques is the most popular
of these films, a part mystery, part horror drama which slowly builds a
confusingly terrifying picture of murder, danger and betrayal.
Christina (Véra Clouzot) is the wife of Paul (Michel
Delassalle), a sadistic, bullying nightmare of a man. Together they run a
boarding school, set up by her inheritance, but their marriage is a disaster.
Paul is openly conducting an affair with fellow teacher Nicole (Simone
Signoret). Nicole, however, is as disgusted and contemptuous of Paul as
Christina – and she eventually persuades her that they should consider ridding
themselves of Paul, with a temptingly simple scheme. However, things swiftly go
against their plans…
Les Diaboliques is
a compelling psychological thriller cum horror story, a creepy slow-burn of
suggestion and paranoia that unfolds a bizarre whodunit mystery, which unnerves
and constantly leaves you guessing. The story unfolds at a measured, inexorable
pace. Clouzot’s camera is a quiet and carefully placed observer, taking in the
events that occur in this hellishly cruel school with a calm directness, a cool
minimalism that lets them speak for themselves.
And it’s a pretty hellish school. Paul is a brutal tyrant
and bully, the teachers and students alternating between fear and loathing for
him. He treats his fragile wife (struggling with a heart condition that could
end her life at any moment) with a casual disregard and cruelty. Poor Christina
is so put-upon and crushed, she seems wearily accepting of her husband’s
constant affairs intermixed with cruelty. Even his mistress (an imperiously
cold, harshly determined Simeone Signoret) can’t stand him. The whole school
seems to have felt the effect of Paul’s personality – its run down, crushed,
disheartened. The other teachers are either disinterested, faintly criminal or
both. Is it any wonder wife and mistress want to murder him?
The murder, when it comes (and it’s the best part of half
way through the movie) is almost blandly low-key. Clouzot even partly intercuts
it with next-door neighbours complaining about the hot water being run late at
night, the sound disturbing their radio quiz – unaware that it’s filling the
bath so the two women can drown a drugged Paul. The flat where the crime occurs
is as low-key and shabby as most of the rest of the film’s locations.
Fascinatingly, what emerges increasingly are the lesbian
undertones to the relationship between Nicole and Christina. Their intimacy is
a major part of the build-up to the murder – their conspiratorial closeness seems
as much as a careful seduction of Christina by Nicole as it is two like-minded
souls coming together (this feeling, by the way, really comes into play as the film
reach its conclusion). As events spiral out of control, Nicole becomes more and
more of a protective, husbandly figure over the fragile Christina (an
intriguing performance of vulnerability from Clouzot’s wife Véra), their
physical and emotional closeness making them feel more and more like lovers
dispatching a husband, rather than allies of convenience. It’s an intriguing
subtext to the film, that I feel will make it of more and more interest as time
goes on.
Events certainly do spiral out of control, as the body
carefully placed in the swimming pool by the murderers (hoping to give the
impression that Paul has accidentally drowned) is never discovered. Is it in
the pool at all? Is Paul dead? Or has someone taken the body? A string of
increasingly unnerving deliveries and visitations occurs – is Paul somehow
speaking from the dead? Or are forces unknown manipulating the killers to
disaster? Clouzot lets these events slowly build, avoiding the temptation to
sprinkle clues or – more importantly – to give the audience more clues than the
characters. We are only ever shown what Christine and Nicole see and only get
the information they get.
This is where the film introduces its fourth primary
character, retired detective Alfred Fichet. Fichet’s ambling, scruffy, seeming
absent-mindedness makes him an eerily accurate forerunner of Colombo (at one
point he all but says “just one more thing”). He rolls from place to place,
clearly much sharper than he appears – it’s an impressively charismatic
performance from Charles Vanel. He manages to work out what has happened (or perhaps
what is happening) before the end – but moves too slowly in order to prevent
disaster. But he changes the dynamic of the film in an intriguing way – shaking
the film up 2/3rds of the way in, a tribute to the invention of its writing.
The final reveal of the plot is tinged with a horrifying
terror – shot with an intense, watery fear that is guaranteed to haunt the
memory. To say more is to reveal too much of an excellent act four twist. But
it’s a sequence that you will find hard to shake from your mind – and one that
you later realise the whole film was building towards. It’s what has led many
people to call this film partly a horror story.
Clouzot’s film is a fine twisty thriller, even if at times
it feels a little too in love with the mechanics of its tricks and plot
mechanisms than it is with emotion and character. But it creates some
intriguing and effective characters (including some small cameos) and it feels
like a film that genuinely teaches us about the casual cruelty and selfishness
that drives so many of our actions. There are many, many lies told in the film
– even the children at the school casually lie – this is not a film that has a
high opinion of the human race.
Les Diaboliques
has been called the greatest Hitchcock film Hitch never made. Hitch might well
have brought a bit more flash and punch in its style (Clouzot is not the most
inventive user of the camera here, with most shots very safe). But I’m not sure
he could have improved its sense of creeping inevitability and grim
claustrophobia. It still packs an inventive, clever and intriguing punch even
today.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.