Juste Avant la Nuit
A late inclusion to complement our Talk on Claude Chabrol in the French Film Festival.
This is Chabrol displaying a keen, almost clinical sense of middle-class morality and psychological anguish.
Charles Masson (Michel Bouquet) is a married publicist who, in a fit of rage, strangles the woman who is both his lover and the wife of his best friend Francois (François Périer). Tormented, Charles tells his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran). It is highly unsettling because you are drawn into the web of complicity, just as Francois and Helene are. At first we feel, like the other characters, that Charles is genuinely remorseful but gradually get the notion that he is the ultimate manipulator, a liar, a cheat and a coward and yet still inspires friendship and love. 'Juste Avant La Nuit' was made in 1971 and is one of the finest of the films from Claude Chabrol's pre-eminent period. (subtitles)
France 1971 Claude Chabrol 100m
