Loving French movies, including some earlier Chabrols, it amazes me that in this particular case a director did not 'ripen' with age.
I can but make my own assumptions on the reasons, why Chabrol did not develop further his earlier lines, like the famous 'Le boucher'. He rather has come around - or tried to come around - on the cinema of the 21st century. Which is not necessarily an improvement.
Only to give one example: taking the woman into the 'boudoir', upstairs, and her making remarks on 'no quickie on the writing table with me' is much too direct, and 21st century. Worst, it doesn't help the plot. We've seen everything when he stuffed a small note containing his number into her decolleté.
Overall, this movie has a well-thought-through plot, one of traditional depth and complexity. Thumbs up from this angle.
Cinematography, however, looks like long drawn out close-ups of minor significance. As if details of faces were trying to make up for artistic bumbling with a convincing overall perspective. Long close-up kissing scenes are part of this movie. While they don't help with the plot and don't advance the underlying theme. Love, guilt, hate, treason, wealth, politics and death are more than enough to fill a movie like this, especially if not as clear-cut as many other movies tend to offer their simple stories and simple solutions. To the contrary, in here we are confronted of various characters, characters of depth, trying to work on the intricacies of generations of bourgeois family lives. Richness of philosophical and ethical questions abound, the treatment by Chabrol leaves some to be desired. Too close, too direct, insufficient distance of the observer, almost like advancing into each scene by facial details.
In the end we learn some of the secrets, though we can just see, in an almost microscopic perspective; but we are not taken to observe.
Stephane Audran once said, Mr. Chabrol always knew where to put the camera, and he always got it right. In this movie, like in some others of his later work, he didn't.
So, should one recommend this movie? If one goes for French movies, and happens to be a fan of Chabrol, despite of all, this movie is advisable.
I can but make my own assumptions on the reasons, why Chabrol did not develop further his earlier lines, like the famous 'Le boucher'. He rather has come around - or tried to come around - on the cinema of the 21st century. Which is not necessarily an improvement.
Only to give one example: taking the woman into the 'boudoir', upstairs, and her making remarks on 'no quickie on the writing table with me' is much too direct, and 21st century. Worst, it doesn't help the plot. We've seen everything when he stuffed a small note containing his number into her decolleté.
Overall, this movie has a well-thought-through plot, one of traditional depth and complexity. Thumbs up from this angle.
Cinematography, however, looks like long drawn out close-ups of minor significance. As if details of faces were trying to make up for artistic bumbling with a convincing overall perspective. Long close-up kissing scenes are part of this movie. While they don't help with the plot and don't advance the underlying theme. Love, guilt, hate, treason, wealth, politics and death are more than enough to fill a movie like this, especially if not as clear-cut as many other movies tend to offer their simple stories and simple solutions. To the contrary, in here we are confronted of various characters, characters of depth, trying to work on the intricacies of generations of bourgeois family lives. Richness of philosophical and ethical questions abound, the treatment by Chabrol leaves some to be desired. Too close, too direct, insufficient distance of the observer, almost like advancing into each scene by facial details.
In the end we learn some of the secrets, though we can just see, in an almost microscopic perspective; but we are not taken to observe.
Stephane Audran once said, Mr. Chabrol always knew where to put the camera, and he always got it right. In this movie, like in some others of his later work, he didn't.
So, should one recommend this movie? If one goes for French movies, and happens to be a fan of Chabrol, despite of all, this movie is advisable.