Twisting the Knife: Four Films by Claude Chabrol

Unlike his French New Wave contemporaries, director Claude Chabrol was never obsessed with reinventing the form of cinema.  And despite emulating Hitchcock’s penchant for thrillers and psychological quirks, his film career was closer to the work of John Ford: a solid craftsman who could bounce between genres but always bring along something of himself.

Twisting the Knife: Four Films by Claude Chabrol is the latest in Arrow Video’s box sets of the director’s later work, this time encompassing four titles released between 1997 and 2003.  Each film includes the typical Chabrol ingredients – sex, murder and copious amounts of emotional baggage – but varies the formula with even greater success than the previous set released last year.

 

The Swindle (1999) is the most lighthearted of the bunch, with a small-time father-daughter pair of crooks staging a heist that puts them a new league financially.  Unfortunately, that reward comes bigger risks…and bigger enemies.  Chabrol is working in playful Hitchcock mode here, taking the audience to exotic locales and teasing us with meaningless MacGuffins.  Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault make it an enjoyable family affair, even if the end result is nothing more than a two-hour vacation.

 

1999’s The Color of Lies is a much more serious affair centered around the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.  The main suspect is her art teacher, Rene, whose livelihood in the small town comes to a screeching halt.  Meanwhile his wife, Vivianne, is considering an affair with the local celebrity, Desmot, a morally questionable journalist who pops up on the suspect list as well.  Chabrol’s peek at the underbelly of rural life is nothing new, but The Color of Lies still strikes a chord, finding the humanity – or lack thereof – in the most unsuspecting characters.

 

Nightcap (2000) is another solid psychological thriller that makes the most of complicated family dynamics.  After a possible switch at birth, aspiring musician Jeanne Pollot confronts her potential father, Andrew Polonski, himself a famous pianist.  Welcomed into the family by second-wife Mika, Jeanne suspects all isn’t quite right in the Polonski household, tipped off by a tragic family history that seems doomed to repeat itself.  Chabrol is firing on all cylinders here.  Even if the motivations don’t always quite add up, the film keeps you guessing until the final fade-out.

 

The most overtly “soapy” film in the set, The Flower of Evil (2003) sticks with that generational theme, stacking up a series of family scandals, tragedies and intermarriages that fate seems determined to repeat.  Here, a political campaign digs up dirty laundry that brings all the bad apples to light.  It takes Chabrol quite a while to get where he’s going with this one, glossing over some significant backstory (as he’s wont to do) that might have been better served onscreen.  The finale is satisfying but overwrought.

 

Arrow’s 4-disc set is a doozy, with introductions, interviews, commentaries and visual essays supporting every film along with an 80-page collector’s booklet.  The Swindle, Nightcap and The Flower of Evil all get new 4K restorations but you won’t find anything to complain about for The Color of Lies either.  Every film looks and sounds terrific.

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