p.s. This is a revisit. My earlier review of this film can be found here.
Director: Claude Chabrol
Genre: Crime Thriller/Black Comedy
Language: French
Country: France
2 comments:
I think this is Chabrol's greatest film, and that's saying plenty. It is his most unsettling account of resentment and anger in the working class; we see what can happen when the wealthy act with consideration and generosity only to discover that those traits are seen very differently and can never be appreciated.
Here, we need to keep a close eye on Isabelle Huppert’s bitter postal worker (Jeanne). She reads a lot, giving out paraphrases of yellow journalism, popular novels, and daily television dramas. A family on vacation that sends Sophie its maid only one postcard is to Jeanne just another example of the infuriating casual indifference of the rich. The fabulous clothes found in a bedroom closet is evidence of conspicuous consumption. A handkerchief borrowed to clean an automobile’s radiator, is carelessly tossed away as if it were a cheap tissue – more proof of the wealthy’s indifference to the needs of others.
When Chabrol assembles all of these minor incidents into a ritual that has the Commendatore sending Mozart’s Don Giovanni to hell while the family watches a television performance of the opera while dressed in black-tie in their living room, we are astonished at what happens. Looking back, we have no reason to be surprised. Perhaps if we had noticed that the volume Jeanne took from the family’s library was “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
That's a brilliant assessment of this brilliant film. I too consider this as Chabrol's greatest accomplishment, which is saying some as there's no shortage of great films in his prolific ouevre. Incidentally I read the excellent source novel by Ruth Rendell just prior to it, and it was particularly interesting to draw both parallels & departures during this revisit. By the way, I hadn't noticed the volume that Jeanne took from the family's library - thanks for sharing that interesting observation.
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