Diabolique

Studio: Criterion

Jun 10, 2011 Web Exclusive By Kyle Lemmon

Alfred Hitchcok’s Psycho (1960) owes quite a bit to Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 horror-thriller masterwork, Les Diaboliques (titled here as Diabolique). Clouzout’s macabre twisting of mundance household items—examples include bathtubs, swimming pools, and typewriters—no doubt foreshadowed the infamous shower scene and musty, claustrophobic rooms of the Bates Motel. It comes as no surprise to learn that Hitchcock vied to adapt Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel, She Who Was No More. Clouzot famously beat him to the screenplay rights, though, and one can’t think of any director that could have done it better.

The old guard French auteur fell out of favor once the New Wave detonated in the late 1950s and 1960s, but he was always a professional and consummate artist. His mise-en-scène was incredibly sharp and fluid, without being overtly imposing. Most of his films depict a misanthropic world populated with orphans, cheats, duplicitous spouses. A stench of death wafts around many corners of his filmography. (If you want proof of these themes, look no further than the previous film in Clouzot’s filmography, The Wages of Fear (1953).) That nail-biter follows a band of hired men transporting a nitroglycerine shipment through a ruined South American village without proper safety equipment. Essentially, he was attracted in lensing desperate people pushed into doing hideous things. The French director’s time in a sanitarium quite possibly left a lasting impression on his psyche and films, too.

Diabolique is a very different kind of film than Clouzot’s other works. The cat-and-mouse narrative casts a long shadow across a character triptych brimming with resentment and deceit: Christina Delassalle (Véra Clouzot) is married to the principal of a boys school named Michel (Paul Meurisse). (Trivia: Véra Clouzot is the wife of Henri-Georges.) Michel is a stingy bastard through and though. He is interminably mean to the schoolchildren, makes his faculty eat rotten fish, and in one harrowing early scene it is implied that he rapes his fragile wife. The weak-hearted, innocent Véra Clouzot, played to perfection by Clouzot’s wife, is a worthy foil for Michel’s mistress, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret). Even Horner is not free of Michel’s rage, though.

At the beginning of the film, she seems cold and calculative behind dark Ray-Bans, only to take off the shades indoors and reveal a bruise near her left eye. Christina’s family own the school, but she ceded control over to her domineering husband. Both women plot to off Michel. (Spoiler: Some film historians have pointed out that the female leads may have a secret lesbian relationship. The visual signs aren’t really there in the film, but the novel actually reveals Christina and Nicole’s relationship as a big plot twist.)

Regardless of implied romance, they are definitely unlikely partners in crime. Regardless of that fact, we follow along with their impossible scheme to sedate, drown, and dispose of Michel’s body at the school’s scummy swimming pool. We root for their cause and don’t want them to get caught. Their plan goes well until the pool is drained and the body is nowhere to be found. No further plot details will be shared in this review.

All along, Clouzot is masterfully framing the narrative for us and choosing what we don’t see and hear. When the twist ending creeps along it truly shocks. Much like Psycho, Diabolique ends with a disclaimer to not tell the ending to your friends. It’s an funny message to read after the advent of The Twilight Zone and many of the suspense and horror films post-1960. Once M. Night Shyamalan came along this type of visual storytelling was old hat to to cinema goers.

All of the actors turn in excellent performances, including a quirky supporting role from Charles Vernal as a retired police detective resolved to crack the case (a precursor to Peter Falk’s Columbo?). This high level of thespian craft is to be expected from a meticulous director such as Clouzot. He would make actors repeat lines ad nauseum. In one of the neat extra features put on this rather sparse Blu-ray, we learn that Meurisse sat in the bathtub during much of the two days of shooting for the hotel scenes. (Thankfully he was supplied with plenty of alcohol.)

The bonus features on this disc are unfortunately pretty slim. The best ones are Kelley Conway’s commentary (Chanteuse In The City: The Realist Singer In 1930s French Film) over selected scenes and a booklet essay by author Terrence Rafferty. The real hallmark of this re-release is the film itself, though. The Blu-ray’s AVC encoded 1080p high definition transer is beautiful and highlights Clouzot’s adeptness at hi-key and low-key camerawork alongside DP Armand Thirard. The last big scene of the film is all creaking gothic horror tropes and shows how great Criterion is at remastering classic films. Sometimes there is graininess or softness to the picture, but nothing becomes very distracting to the overall experience.

Diabolique is a heart-clutching portrait of true terror that still manages to delight and enthrall over fixty-six years later. There’s a sensuality to these sadistic images that says more about the viewer than the characters in this tautly drawn melodrama.

Passing Note: Eightball/Ghost World cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ cover art is a welcome surprise after Criterion’s recent string of bland and overused artwork. It perfectly captures the slightly off-kilter, pulpy feel of the film. He also did the covers for The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor. (www.criterion.com)

Author rating: 8/10

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