Next up is Inspector Lavardin (1986). Inspector Lavardin is induced to investigate the murder of a province’s notable who was taking himself as the moral guardian of his village.
The perspective of the inquiry changes when the inspector recognizes the widow as one of his youthful loves.
The sequel to Cop Au Vin, in which Jean Poiret’s eccentric title character is given more screen-time, proves to be almost as good; if anything, he is less detached towards his current case – since the victim’s wife (Bernadette Lafont) is an old flame of the Inspector’s!
Besides, the sleazy vicissitudes of the murder mystery here are somewhat more compelling than in the first film – involving as it does bigamy, drug-trafficking, incest, infidelity, patricide, prostitution, etc.!
Once again, Lavardin locks horns with one of the suspects in particular, a discotheque-owner who unwisely flaunts his political connections at him. As I said, the protagonist is allowed plenty of opportunity to display his idiosyncrasies – such as when he willfully destroys the fragile collection of ornamental eyes owned by Jean-Claude Brialy (playing Lafont’s spirited live-in gay brother), or when, at the disco, he first appropriates for himself a drink being poured to a paying customer and then, interrupts the activities to request identification papers from suspicious-looking patrons!
However, the women are not only scarcer than they were the first time around but also less interesting: Lafont herself is oddly given little of substance to do, while the actress appearing as her daughter (who has more to do with her stepfather’s death than her mother could ever imagine) is simply too nondescript for such a pivotal role!
Otherwise, the film offers much the same level of entertainment and maintains a more or less comparable standard of quality as the original.
Then comes Madame Bovary (1991). In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire marries a dull country doctor. To escape boredom, she throws herself into love affairs with a suave local landowner and a law student and runs up ruinous debts.
At first glance, Madame Bovary may seem like an atypical project for Claude Chabrol: a costume drama with no murders at all; although there are a couple of deaths, plus an amputation!
But if you look closer, you can see that the meticulous production, the elegant camera work, the morally complex characters, the extramarital affairs, the methodically (and at times excessively) slow pacing, they are all characteristically Chabrolian.
This film is not just based on a book, it feels like a book on the screen, with its linear, one-thing-after-the-other structure and the (unidentified) narrator commenting on the action from time to time.
Jean Rabier’s magnificent cinematography contribute to our enjoyment by showing the rural Normandy area where the film was shot in vivid detail. The incidental music is credited to Matthieu Chabrol, son of the director, working with Maurice Coignard and Jean-Michel Bernard.
The exquisitely beautiful Isabelle Huppert gives us an intelligent take on the title character; the rest of the cast is fine. Not exactly an exciting movie, but a worthwhile and beautifully made one.
Up next is Betty (1992). A drunken self-destructive woman called Betty wanders through bars and meets a man that drives her to a restaurant outside Paris called Le Trou (The Hole).
She meets the middle-aged alcoholic Laure from Lyon, who is the lover of the Le Trou’s owner Mario. Laure decides to take care of Betty and brings her to the room next-door in her hotel.
Along the days, Betty tells the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy marriage to Laure and also recalls moments of her promiscuous life.
Chabrol’s true representations of women have made him a Le Cinéaste Des Femmes and Betty signifies a change of pace for Chabrol; especially after years of thrillers and such.
Betty is a unique tale of a troubled bourgeois woman who felt that she could drown her sorrows in alcohol. Chabrol has accurately adapted Simenon novel as everything appears in a flashback. Indeed, he has made it clear that he has not created neither a psychological portrait nor a moralistic drama.
Betty is a collection of sharp observations on bourgeois life. She is a victim of circumstances as destiny did not favor her. Although her marriage was based on love it didn’t succeed as she was skeptical of it from the beginning.
What she really wanted was companionship. Betty and Laure share a strange friendship built on mutual trust and respect. Furthermore, Betty’s heartrending tale confirms that no woman will ever leave her family unless something tragic happens to her.
In closing, Stéphane Audran as Laure drinks almost as much as Betty, but cannot forget she has feelings, is capable of compassion and, in truth, Chabrol concentrates on satirizing the bourgeois family to the exclusion of practically everything else in the story.
Lastly we get Torment (1994). Paul, an irritable and stressed-out hotel manager, begins to gradually develop paranoid delusions about his wife’s infidelity. As he succumbs to green-eyed jealousy, his life starts to crumble.
Each step on his downward spiral to madness seems to accelerate, driving him further along the path to a personal hell. Finally, the former shell of his personality cracks completely, with tragic consequences.
Reality, or fantasy is the immediate question posed in Claude Chabrol’s Torment (aka L’Enfer) and thus the man who carried the mantel of the French Hitchcock Chabrol delivers a taut, bare to the bones thriller.
When husband Paul (Francois Cluzet) begins to believe his beautiful, flirtatious wife Nelly (Emmanuelle Beart) is fooling around, his psychological demise is quick, and intense.
Chabrol brings us the story primarily from Paul’s point of view, leaving many of the ambiguities, as well as the uncertainties of this tale to our own imagination.
From a script of Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, Wages of Fear) written in 1964, Chabrol updates the original (Clouzot never finished his version due to failing health, he died in 1977) giving it the contemporary setting and dialogue, but maintaining a style of presentation consistent with the thrillers of that era.
I love this early exchange: Nelly: You’re following me, Paul. Paul: Why would I, is there any reason? Nelly: No, but if you keep it up, there will be.
Emmanuelle Beart shows why she is one of the world’s great stars. American audiences have yet to have the best of Beart, who’s English speaking debut (Mission: Impossible) seemed uneven, almost clumsy. But here she delivers on all cylinders: a beautiful seductress. Calculating? Unfaithful? You’ll just have to watch for yourselves and find out! These are all Widescreen Presentations (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:
High definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all five films
New 4K restorations of Madame Bovary, Betty, and Torment
Original lossless French PCM mono audio on Cop Au Vin, Inspector Lavardin, Madame Bovary and Betty
Original lossless French PCM stereo audio on Torment
Optional English Subtitles
Archive introductions to all films by film scholar Joël Magny
Select scene commentaries for all films by Claude Chabrol
Theatrical trailers and image galleries for all films
80-page collector’s booklet of new writing by film critics Martyn Conterio, Kat Ellinger, Philip Kemp and Sam Wigley, and archive material
Limited edition packaging with newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
DISC 1: COP AU VIN
New commentary by critic Ben Sachs
New interview with film historian Ian Christie
Claude Chabrol at the BFI, Chabrol on stage with film historian Ian Christie in 1994
Claude Chabrol, Jean Poiret & Stephane Audran in conversation, archive Swiss TV episode with director and cast discussing Cop Au Vin
DISC 2: INSPECTOR LAVARDIN
New commentary by critic Ben Sachs
Why Chabrol?, new interview with film critic Sam Wigley on why Chabrol remains essential viewing
DISC 3: MADAME BOVARY
New commentary by critic Kat Ellinger
Imagining Emma: Madame Bovary on screen, new visual essay by film historian Pamela Hutchinson
DISC 4: BETTY
New commentary by critic Kat Ellinger
Betty, from Simenon to Chabrol, new visual essay by French Cinema historian Ginette Vincendeau
New interview with Ros Schwartz, the English translator of the Georges Simenon novel on which the film is based
DISC 5: TORMENT
New commentary by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
On Henri Georges Clouzot, archival interview with Chabrol about, Clouzot’s abandoned attempt to make L’enfer
Interview with Marin Karmitz, archive interview with Chabrol’s most frequent producer from 1985 onward
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Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol