Not Coming to a Theater Near You
What do you think she meant when she said “a huge black monster with giant claws”?
What do you think she meant when she said “a huge black monster with giant claws”?
Of all the New Wave directors still with us, Chabrol is the most prolific and, it seems, the least celebrated (compare the critical attention given to Resnais’ and Rohmer’s less than thrilling latest efforts), probably because of the narrow genre limits he works within, the bourgeoisie-set crime drama. A Girl Cut In Two is a dark delight, a story (a young and innocent TV weather girl swings between her much older, corrupting novelist lover and a near-psychotic rich wastrel) where all the characters in some way behave in ways they shouldn’t but where Chabrol in the end holds back on moral judgment. (Even the rich-bitch mother-in-law — an otherwise fine object of Chabrolian animus, à la Betty — has her validating moment.) It’s all tied together at the end when Chabrol abandons his standard realism for a marvellous poetic-symbolic illustration of the title.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
19 Dec 2007 10:26 PM | Submit Comment
