With "les biches" ,Chabrol entered his second and most fruitful period:the first one encompassed such classics as "les cousins" and "à double tour" but his formula began to wear thin in the mid -sixties with failures like "l'oeil du malin" "Marie-Chantal contre le docteur Kah" and the abysmal "le scandale".
Stephane Audran ,his then-wife starred in all these movies (roughly 1968-1973)bar two ("la decade prodigieuse" and "docteur popaul") and their spellbinding mysterious atmosphere owes a lot to her.
"Les biches " has not worn that much well though:at the time ,lesbians were not so common in the movies ,and of course they always had a bad end -see also Mark Rydell's "the fox" or William Wyler's "the children's hour"for that matter-.What remains today is not much :only the scene showing Jacqueline Sassard's trying to become the woman she loves by taking her clothes ,her jewels ,her make-up and her voice is still impressive today;what remains falls into the trap of triteness:the man who comes between the two girls ,the chic bourgeois life in Saint-Tropez under the snow,the two would be comic reliefs -who are not funny at all-....
"Les biches" is a must for Chabrol 's fans because it inaugurates his golden era ,which would give such classics as "la femme infidèle" or "le boucher".But the others can easily do without it.
Stephane Audran ,his then-wife starred in all these movies (roughly 1968-1973)bar two ("la decade prodigieuse" and "docteur popaul") and their spellbinding mysterious atmosphere owes a lot to her.
"Les biches " has not worn that much well though:at the time ,lesbians were not so common in the movies ,and of course they always had a bad end -see also Mark Rydell's "the fox" or William Wyler's "the children's hour"for that matter-.What remains today is not much :only the scene showing Jacqueline Sassard's trying to become the woman she loves by taking her clothes ,her jewels ,her make-up and her voice is still impressive today;what remains falls into the trap of triteness:the man who comes between the two girls ,the chic bourgeois life in Saint-Tropez under the snow,the two would be comic reliefs -who are not funny at all-....
"Les biches" is a must for Chabrol 's fans because it inaugurates his golden era ,which would give such classics as "la femme infidèle" or "le boucher".But the others can easily do without it.