I think a little familiarity with T.S Eliot's play The Family Reunion, from which Chabrol undoubtedly draws and also with Burnt Norton is necessary to fully appreciate the film. The notion that the past is not really past at all, but a part of the relentless present is the driving force of the film. The footfalls of the past echo in memory, almost in Bergsonian duree. The protagonist coming back home after quite a number of years, skeletons out of the closet, clandestine and forbidden love affairs are archetypes that is at the deep structure of the film. At the core there is a dialogue between the past and the future, in the eternal present.
Review of The Flower of Evil
