Chabrol

The Bridesmaid and Merci Pour Le Chocolat

First Run Features

R1 DVD

Claude Chabrol recently died, aged eighty. His career in film has been compared with that of Alfred Hitchcock and in these two films we can see why. Chabrol did not go for gunplay or violent conflict to build his films. Rather, he built them a clue at a time towards a conclusion that he may even leave to rhe viewer’s imagination. Even when we know who is carrying out the acts of evil we are still left guessing until the end what will become of them.

Chabrol was not afraid to use women as central characters, good or bad, and his films are often more powerful because of this. These two examples of his work have women carrying out crimes that would be more typical of a male character. Chabrol also seemed to like taking a passing swipe at the rich and powerful – they too have their dark, nasty little secrets that are at odds with their role as pillars of the community.

In The Bridesmaid, Phillipe, the son of an upper class family, meets Senta at his sister’s wedding. He is fascinated by her and that fascination soon turns to a deeper feeling that could be love. Senta seems to reciprocate his feelings, but she is a strange person. Her life seems to be a mixture of half truths, deep emotion and even obsession with Phillipe.

Senta sets Phillippe a number of tasks that will show that he truly loves her. The tasks will challenge everything Phillippe has been brought up to believe in. Will he do it for love?

Merci Pour le Chocolat also deals with dark personalities. Young Jeanne has ambitions of becoming a concert pianist. She is intrigued when her aunt lets slip that she was mixed up at birth in the hospital with Guillaume, the son of great concert pianist Andre Polonski. She visits Polonski and the coincidences and questions begin to pile up. Guillaume has no piano playing ability whatever, but Jeanne has. Guillaime’s dark brooding personality is more like Jeanne’s mother and Jeanne’s cheerful outlook and determination have a lot in common with Polonski.

All is not well in Polonski’s family, though. He and his wife have remarried after his second wife died in strange circumstances. Although she never took drugs she went to sleep at the wheel of her car and was killed when the car crashed. Rohypnol was found in her blood. Andre Polonski uses Rohypnol to help him sleep. He takes it with the hot chocolate that his wife prepares for the family every night. Jeanne becomes more and more suspicious of this chocolate. She has it analysed and finds it is full of Rohypnol. Why is Andre’s wife drugging her family? Why is she so disturbed when the mixup of the babies at birth is mentioned?

Then the story turns nasty and Jeanne’s life may now be in danger. Don’t drink the chocolate !

Although we can often see the climax coming, we follow Chabrol’s stories right up to the end. There is something of a cold fascination watching these people sink lower into their own criminal world and wondering if the few good people can overcome the bad. It’s a bit like watching a fly caught in a spider’s web and seeing the spider approach - the end is inevitable but we keep hoping that the fly will escape its fate.

Chabrol was a good director and writer, well worth being put in the same group as Hitchcock. These stories are fine examples of his work.

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