User Reviews

If you are looking for action, erotic or otherwise, this is not a film you will enjoy.

It is a simple pleasure of color and emotion.

The plot is simple: A rich woman (Stéphane Audran - Babette's Feast, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) takes a liking to a poor young girl (Jacqueline Sassard). A man (Jean-Louis Trintignant - Z, Red) enters the picture, and friction results. That's it.

But, don't let the simplicity fool you. There is an elegant dance among the characters as emotional games are played. It is the dance amid the beauty of St. Tropez that is the pleasure.

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.

'Les Biches', whilst not my favourite Chabrol film ranks among his best. On one level it has sumptuous cinematography on a par with 'Le boucher', another excellent score, courtesy of Pierre Jansen and some very stylish direction. All Chabrol's actors play their parts beautifully although Audran undoubtedly has the best material.

But what marks this film out and what many cannot appear to perceive is that it is not a meditation on class or a portrait of a 'menage a trois'. It does touch on those subjects, as do many of Chabrol's films, but this film is essentially about identity and it's destruction or absorption by another. Stephanie Audran's character is, put simply a VAMPIRE. This is humorously and beautifully established early in the picture when she first meets Sassard's character 'Why' on a bridge in Paris amid a Gothic mist and with Audran looking drained and evidently needing a new victim. Many have commented on Jean-Louis Trintignant's acting, arguing that it is bland or inexpert, failing to realise that as part of the plot he had to be 'consumed' by Audran and had to appear ineffectual. Compare Audran's extraordinarily vital, near superhuman character in 'Les Biches' to her purposefully meek character in 'La Rupture' and one can begin to see what a subtle and intelligent actress she is.

On first viewing 'Les Biches' some years ago I was mystified and like other reviewers irritated by the two scroungers Robegue and Riais. After further viewing it appears they are purposefully antagonistic and their apparently parasitic relationship points to them being Audran's familiars.

The raison d'etre of the film are the final sequences in which 'Why' ultimately escapes the fate of Paul and destroys Frederique by becoming her. So 'Les Biches' is essentially a nuanced and very stylised commentary on identity and it's struggle to coexist within a relationship.

Chabrol's "Les Biches" doesn't exactly have meanings. It seems to be a mix of visual style, romance, and existentialism. There's not what you would call "characters" but rather types or suspended lives upon which sparse words are attached. If there is such a thing as "empty depth," this film has it in the sense that it carries psychological suspense and weight which, however, is headed nowhere except, perhaps, toward personal obsession.

However, there is the question of domination, both in the sexual and class sense. "Les Biches" begins with a materialized pick-up fantasy. The object is a young woman street artist; the subject is Frederique, a woman who's much superior in terms of class, income, prestige, and sophistication. She literally buys off the artist's resistance by suggesting to her something more than poverty and loneliness. Their initial sensual encounter, based on objectification and selection, is a prelude to Frederique's subsequent controlling relationship of her new protege, which chiefly takes place at her villa on the Riviera.

But Why, as her "name" implies is more than just an interesting challenge to her unequal lover. At a party, when she decides to give in to the architect's flirtations, she raises the ante a little too high for her noble patron, whose equanimity, generous spirit, and playfulness with others, is too strongly tested by Why. So, Fredy, in turn, raises her even higher--even to the point of taking on the architect herself as her lover. And so the game is played out initially in a somewhat friendly spirit, but when Fredy becomes more neglectful, more betraying, and demands more and more subservience, Why experiences a sense of fatality. Having lost both of her lovers, outcast and out-classed, and incapable of confronting them, she defiantly appropriates Frederique's body/mind. But even before the final twist, she plaintively begs Fredy to embrace her offer in a three-sided relationship.

Although "les biches" has several meanings in French, its suggested English meaning might, in the end, be the most telling. For it's as if the two women have been subjected to a deadly, rhapsodic cat fight in which each antagonist gets her "just" comeuppance.

Many films uses the "Menage a Trois" element to cause disturbances in the relationship between three people. "Les Biches" uses this device to completely destroy its three characters. A perfect psychological film, "Les Biches" is the ONLY film that I know where it doesn't use Menage a Trois as a facade, but allows the film to explore its themes of Jealousy and Obsession to a sensual and extremely disturbing effect. Not even Truffaut's "Jules and Jim" used the device to this extent. This film is suited for people who loves to watch movies that will make us think, rather than movies that tells us what to think. Truly a hypnotic character study on physical and spiritual obsession. Kudos to Chabrol, his lovely wife Stephane Aubran, cinematographer Jean Rabier, and the sensuous Jacqueline Sassard for their specific roles in creating a chilling masterpiece.

I can't help but think of this movie as a send up of the famous Abbott and Costello routine: Who's on First. The odd naming of the female character, 'Why,' who scores with the architect before her mentor is a perfect start. Why's on first, and the What makes it all the way home. The picture is ambiguous to a fault. Event the title is ambiguous. Did the film maker mean Bad Girls, baby deer, bitches, or just us girls. If it were not for the beauty of the female leads, the gorgeous setting of St. Tropez, the movie would be a total bore, about characters who can't show you who they are because they don't know themselves. The most I could make of it is that it's about a control freak who runs a menagerie of people for her amusement to fill an unfulfilled life until one day one of the wild animals gets lose to put an end to the zoo. The secondary characters, supposedly two amusing gay men, were so annoying that it stretches the imagination to see how the zoo keeper would have them around. Let's write it off as a travelogue of a hot spot on the Riviera.

In Paris, while crossing a bridge over the Seine, the bored bisexual millionaire Frédérique (Stéphane Audran) meets the homeless young street painter Why (Jacqueline Sassard) and invites her to drink tea at her apartment. They have a love affair and Frédérique brings the virgin Why to spend winter in her house in Saint Tropez, where two weird gay friends of her live. When Frédérique gives a party for a few guests, the handsome architect Paul Thomas (Jean-Louis Trintignant) hits on Why. She is seduced by Paul and spends the night with him in his place. On the next day, the selfish Frédérique visits Paul and seduces him. They travel together to Paris and when they return, Frédérique tells Why that Paul is going to live with them in her house. Why is disturbed and she secretly poses like Frédérique unsuccessfully trying to seduce Paul. One night, Why proposes them to get drunken expecting to go to their room and have a threesome, but she is unwanted by the couple. When Frédérique and Paul travel to Paris for an urgent business, the deranged Why follows them expecting to stay in Frédérique's apartment. But when she is rejected by the socialite, tragedy is announced.

"Les Biches" is a sensual and sexy thriller divided in four parts ("Prologue"; "Frédérique"; "Why"; and "Epilogue") and ahead of time for a 1968 film, dealing with themes like bisexualism and homosexualism in subtle situations. The romance between Frédérique and Why, for example, is never explicit but it is to be read between the lines through the glances of the socialite to her protégé. Why Frédérique supports her two gay friends is never clear but maybe she finds them amusing with their silliness. Paul Thomas seems to be only interested in Frédérique's money but his character is also not well developed and serves only as a pivot to the tragedy. The open conclusion is left to the interpretation of the viewer and a trademark of Chabrol. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

In Paris, a rich bi-sexual woman picks up a homeless young woman and takes her to her villa, where she lives with a couple of gay men (not explained why). Despite Chabrol's reputation as the French Hitchcock, there isn't much suspense, or plot for that matter. It's basically a moody character study that is interesting enough but ultimately rather unsatisfying. Audran (then Mrs. Chabrol) is well cast as the capricious rich woman. Sassard is alluring (those lips!) as an enigmatic artist; the actress seemingly had a nice career going but retired from films after this film at age 28. Trintignant isn't given much to do as an architect that both women fall for.

When this came out, the bisexual and homosexual elements of this film must have been scandalous. However, today they just seem rather tame and the writer/director didn't seem sure what sort of sexuality they wanted to explore. Yes, the two stupid and TOTALLY ANNOYING leeches that lived off the rich lady were obviously gay--this isn't really in doubt. However, the sexual relationship between the two ladies is pretty ambiguous and just when you think it's a film about lesbianism, they both suddenly show an amazing (and completely out of nowhere) interest in a guy--the same one to be exact. This seemed like a cop-out in a way--almost like saying "they thought they were gay,...but it was just a passing fad after all". So, the real impact was minimal.

Now as for the story itself, I just wasn't super impressed. While it is a little better than the many Chabrol films I have seen, this isn't exactly a glowing endorsement, as often his films seem pretty transparent--i.e., you can certainly guess how the film is going to end and the "twists" don't especially pay out. Overall, a very overrated time-passer and that is all.

Although comparisons to Hitchcock are inevitable (and perhaps deserved), Chabrol's best films have an ethereal quality and a unique approach to the storytelling that's all his. In many ways, although coming in the late stages of what is considered by many Chabrol's transitional phase (which I sometimes think is a polite way to say 'Chabrol went daft on us and decided he was a glossy espionage thriller sort'), "Les Biches" is reminiscent of some of Chabrol's early films, including the ones which were key to the development of the French New Wave. There's a lot of that in this film, with its off-kilter approach and unconventional editing, a pleasant surprise coming after the glossy, typical murder-mystery that was "The Champagne Murders". This film fits perfectly with Chabrol the auteur's style, ideology, and storytelling method (focusing heavily on the characters), and it's nice to see him craft such a visually remarkable film after the disappointments that preceded.

Before going further into the visual aspects of the film I'd like to address the script. In short, it's great. It's the sort of thing that could have so easily been a heinously atrocious melodrama or a cheap skin flick (which, as the film involves bisexuality, is unsurprisingly how it was marketed in the US), but is so intelligently-written and well-developed that it works tremendously well. Most importantly, of course, the characters are complex and interesting enough to carry the first half of the film, before the strange relationships between the three main characters come to the forefront and Chabrol relentlessly builds the sexual tension and suspense all the way through to the film's excellent final scene.

The visuals are unquestionably Chabrol. The direction is highly controlled and the camera is rarely still, and even then a zoom is almost expected. With most other directors this would almost feel impatient and unnecessary but Chabrol is always able to use the technique to his advantage, using the motion evocatively and reflecting the nature of the film's events, and this also means that stillness can be used to great effect (as it is in a key scene in around the hour and twenty minute mark). The cinematography by Jean Rabier (Cléo de 5 à 7) is excellent and doubtlessly influenced heavily by Chabrol, who frequently favors muted colors, especially pastels, and understated use of sunlight. The choreography of the camera movement and those in front of the camera is of far more interest than the photography, however, and may even be a nuisance to some viewers as the movement of the characters is often very contrived and even unnatural to create a particular sort of shot composition. These scenes achieve a sort of gracefulness that ultimately works in favor of the film stylistically, but realists and naturalists might be upset.

"Les Biches" is one of Chabrol's better sixties films, a taut, suspenseful drama that should be approached without any specific expectations of genre or style. The characters carry the film, and Chabrol's stylish but sophisticated direction keeps the film involving and gripping, allowing the viewer a rare bit of comfort now and then before raising the tension again.

9/10

Decadent rich society woman uses people and then discards them once too often. Fine performances all round, with great location work and photography. The whole film feels like a snake slowly and seductively coiling itself around the viewer. You know it will end badly but keep watching till the inevitable crash.

While the beauty and terrific acting of Sassard and Audran make this film seem to be about sexual roles, sexual ambiguity and personal and sexual identity, at its core, this is about a girl who is or becomes unbalanced, and once she comes unhinged, becomes a violent character from a Fritz Lang noir. The penultimate scene is transfixing, but the entire film is beautifully shot, tautly edited and exceptionally stylish and intelligent without calling attention to itself. As usual, Chabrol begins with a noir thriller and casual plot and transforms these elements into something else. Though not a common video, it is available on tape; please see it.

Out of curiosity I watched ' Les Biches ' after many long years. I hated it in Paris at the time of its release and I hate it now, and I am not going to rehash the plot as it has been churned over far too often. Audran gives a performance full of mannerisms and as a lipstick Lesbian, so as to appeal to the basest instincts of the audience, she utterly succeeds, and falls into the clichés that have marred female homosexuality since cinema began. Chabrol may have thought it was a progressive film but it was not. It does nothing to explore in depth its subject matter, and is utterly shallow. Trintignant gives a performance that is void of interest and Sassard succumbs to cliché motions of mad behaviour that ends with Chabrol's favourite obsession which is sub-Hitchcock murder. The visual aspect of the film is ugly and the music which is good deserved a better film. I give it a 3 as it at least gives a glimpse of homosexuality ( albeit negative ) to a deeply homophobic French culture. I use the word homosexuality because bisexuality is part of the spectrum, and Lesbian bisexuality in film was more acceptable to an ignorant public who could condemn it while being sexually titillated by it. A badly made film that has no psychological interest but uses psychology so as to conform to the perception that same sex relationships must be broken up to admit heterosexuality, and by doing so comforts a jaded audience. That this leads to psychosis and murder is the nasty sauce on the rotten content of the film.

The first time I saw this movie I liked it. The second time I thought Ho hum, the third time (OK I am practicing my French and I remembered this as a movie with a pretty clear sound track) I loved it.

It starts slow, a bit weird, but the intensity between the women works as the scene plays out and really starts to cook when they get to St. Tropez, but Frédérique is just too spoiled to know a good thing when she sees it and blows it.

Chabrol shows us just how stupid we can be when we don't know what we are doing, or just how much in love we are and how much stupider we get when jealousy sets in.

Stéphane Audran is just so cold and yet so vulnerable.

This one may get a fourth viewing yet, putting it in league with Chabrol's Le Boucher (One of THE BEST ever) and Casablanca.

Although I've usually enjoyed Chabrol's film and his (then-wife's) Stephane Audran's ice-cool looks, this is down the ho-hum trail from beginning to end (picking up a bit in the middle). Trintignant is his usual passive self and Jacquelline Sassard is strange and disturbing-looking with no apparent acting talent.

A 3 out of 10. Best performance = S. Audran. If this is supposed to be erotic, mysterious, and dark - it missed the mark by a mile. Beautiful French locales with extra supporting characters who serve no real purpose. Don't waste your time unless you're really a Chabrol junkie. Have wanted to see this for years...what a pity.

American films are usually about someone coming in to clean up the mess around them; A good many French films are about people dealing with the mess that's inside--and in Les Biches (not only "The Bad Girls" as uneasily translated, but "The Does," as in fauns) director Claude Chabrol returns to his obsession with the sexual power that one individual attempts to have over another, and like Hitchcock, with identities that fluctuate as the situation changes.

Les Biches is a subtle and subversive look at two women, one rich and powerful and beautiful, and a younger street artist who draws "does" on the sidewalks of Paris, picked up by the elder to vacation with her in St. Tropez during the winter--Jean-Louis Trignitant enters as the token love interest, and quietly nasty love games ensue: Chabrol's early films do not seem to date the way most films of the 1960's do, and the only problem with this one is that is should be available in widescreen as some of his quietly elegant compositions have been hacked at the edges by some corporate type that should have known better.

Les Biches is only the fourth film I've seen from 'The French Hitchcock' Claude Chabrol, but already the great director is becoming one of my favourites. Chabrol clearly likes to keep his films under wraps and deliver stories in a succinct manner, and Les Biches is another example of that; as on the surface the film is a rather tame thriller focusing on the ambiguous relationship between two (possible) lesbians, but underneath it's a strange and interesting character study exploring an unorthodox three way relationship. The first character we are introduced to is Frédérique; a seemingly wealthy woman who meets a street painter who simply calls herself "Why". Frédérique gives the painter money before asking her if she will accompany her back to her lavish villa. The street painter agrees and goes back to the house, where we meet the strange gay couple Robèque and Riais. Soon enough, an architect named Paul Thomas imposes on the girls' relationship, first romancing Why and later being seduced by Frédérique before moving into the villa...

The film makes homosexuality one of its main themes, which must have been fairly daring considering the time in which the film was released. The film stars two beautiful women - Stéphane Audran (Chabrol's wife at the time) and Jacqueline Sassard. Both women look great and their chemistry together provided one of the main reasons I enjoyed this film so much. The actresses' beauty is matched by Chabrol's cinematography as the great director ensures that everything about this film is stunning and a joy to behold. As is always the case with Chabrol, the film is extremely high class and the production values and acting are exquisite. It has to be said that the movie doesn't have a great deal of plot, and this has lead to a number of viewers labelling the film 'boring', but for me the visuals and implications of the plot were enough to ensure that Les Biches is always interesting. The film is not so much of a thriller as the likes of Blood Relatives and Le Boucher; there's not a great deal of suspense and it's not difficult to work out where the story is going. However, as a drama the film works magnificently well and Les Biches does come recommended.

Stéphane Audran died last march 27, 2018. She was the fetish actress of director Claude Chabrol, and his wife since 1964. As an homage to her, I reviewed this movie again today.

Stéphane Audran was awarded the Best Actress prize of 1968 in the Berlin Film Festival, for this movie. The film was cut in different markets from the original 104 minutes to 99, 97 (in USA for a PG rated VHS 1980 release), and even 88 minutes.

«After seven years of rather paltry stuff, Claude Chabrol re-established his reputation with this elegantly enacted, cool, callous, and witty bisexual ménage-à-trois. It was also the first film in which Stéphane Audran (Mrs. Chabrol since 1964) was given a role worthy of her subtle expressiveness.» - Bloomsbury's Video Guide.

«This movie "proves that you can make a very sexy movie with practically no nude or copulation scenes. Yet the underlying sex drive is steamy and erotic.» - The X-Rated Videotape Guide, vol. II.

«1967 was the year of lesbianism in French cinema. Two films were turned with just a few months between them: "Les biches" by Claude Chabrol, with an original script, and "La Religieuse" by Jacques Rivette, upon Diderot's novel. Chabrol admits: "It was explosive for it's time. For the first time you were seeing a girl «taking» another girl... Be it the scene of the bathtub, or Stéphane's stripping, I never photographed below the navel: I always cut right in time! After all, both my does fell in love with a boy, and the most rich «won» him, what, as far as I saw it, was more immoral than a special relationship. Besides, to tell you the truth, lesbianism doesn't attract me; it only interests me as an abnormality. If a woman wants to have children, that is not the best way to achieve it..."» - Chabrol cited by Frank Deeth, "Sapho c'qui faut! Quand les biches envahissent l'écran", in "Le Crapouillot", nº 23, December 1972.

The original title sends a complex message. "Les biches" (French for female doe, the sweet animal a girl is drawing on the pavement when we first meet her character) is also French slang for "girls" in the way the British used to refer to young women as "birds", and the Americans as "chicks" or "foxes", with no derogatory intention. The Portuguese title (when the lesbian word was taboo), "As Rivais" erases the essential subject of the story, emphasizing the threesome of the story. The American title, "Bad Girls" adds an ethical judgement on the two women's behaviour that is far from what we are told about their characters.

Claude Chabrol was an upper-middle-class man, a bourgeois, and though he did not subscribe to the leftist agendas current in France in the 1960s, he was a permanent critic of the upper classes hypocrisy and disdain for the others. Some reviewers have pointed that the end of the movie represents the victory of the rich girl over the poor girl in their dispute for the man - therefore representing the usual, realistic triumph of the rich and powerful. Having seen many of Chabrol's films, I agree that in this one he was sending that message too, that we mostly missed for the blatant dare of showing, with taste but explicitly, love among women.

Vacuous film. I was ready for a French classic and got a French dud. Talk about wooden acting, a sleep inducing boring plot, and marionette characters that evoke no sympathy or genuine emotion.

I've seen student films better than this. Normally, at least one of the characters needs to be likable. I'll give the cook some points for trying.

The two gay dudes were simply embarrassing to watch. To think a mature director could think their grade school shtick was humorous in any way, shape or form is astounding.

I only gave 3 stars because some of the cinematography was nice and the ladies were quite fashionable.

That's about the best I can say about it: a very trite fashion piece.