À double tour (1959)
(Web of Passion)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor 110m
Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Jacques Dacqmine, Madeleine Robinson, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernadette Lafont, Antonella Lualdi
Synopsis:
The family of a wealthy wine-grower outside Aix-en-Provence feels the ripples of his dalliance with a beautiful young artist across the way, especially when his ne'er-do-well prospective son-in-law sticks in his oar.
Review:
Chabrol's first colour film cannot deserve the neglect to which it has been subjected, dismissed as 'undergratuatish' by Halliwell. Sure, it has its excesses, some melodramatic music and rather too much dialogue (it dearly needed Brialy in the role of the effete aesthete son), but the cinematography is superb, there is some masterful mise en scène of actors and decor, and any film that can boast both that iconic shot of Lafont leaning out of the window in matching underwear and the one of Jocelyn (as the son, Richard) in a fractured mirror has got to lay claim to some affection among cinephiles. Apart from which, it is instructive to note the hallmarks of the classic Chabrol scenario: bourgeois family whose members detest one another, preoccupation with form and appearances, artistic/modernist trappings (Richard's obsession with classical music, the Japanese design of Léda's bungalow). Belmondo's performance is a trifle overripe at times, but it still makes one regret the director did not use him more often.
(Web of Passion)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor 110m
Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Jacques Dacqmine, Madeleine Robinson, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernadette Lafont, Antonella Lualdi
Synopsis:
The family of a wealthy wine-grower outside Aix-en-Provence feels the ripples of his dalliance with a beautiful young artist across the way, especially when his ne'er-do-well prospective son-in-law sticks in his oar.
Review:
Chabrol's first colour film cannot deserve the neglect to which it has been subjected, dismissed as 'undergratuatish' by Halliwell. Sure, it has its excesses, some melodramatic music and rather too much dialogue (it dearly needed Brialy in the role of the effete aesthete son), but the cinematography is superb, there is some masterful mise en scène of actors and decor, and any film that can boast both that iconic shot of Lafont leaning out of the window in matching underwear and the one of Jocelyn (as the son, Richard) in a fractured mirror has got to lay claim to some affection among cinephiles. Apart from which, it is instructive to note the hallmarks of the classic Chabrol scenario: bourgeois family whose members detest one another, preoccupation with form and appearances, artistic/modernist trappings (Richard's obsession with classical music, the Japanese design of Léda's bungalow). Belmondo's performance is a trifle overripe at times, but it still makes one regret the director did not use him more often.
(Web of Passion)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor 110m
Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Jacques Dacqmine, Madeleine Robinson, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernadette Lafont, Antonella Lualdi
Synopsis:
The family of a wealthy wine-grower outside Aix-en-Provence feels the ripples of his dalliance with a beautiful young artist across the way, especially when his ne'er-do-well prospective son-in-law sticks in his oar.
Review:
Chabrol's first colour film cannot deserve the neglect to which it has been subjected, dismissed as 'undergratuatish' by Halliwell. Sure, it has its excesses, some melodramatic music and rather too much dialogue (it dearly needed Brialy in the role of the effete aesthete son), but the cinematography is superb, there is some masterful mise en scène of actors and decor, and any film that can boast both that iconic shot of Lafont leaning out of the window in matching underwear and the one of Jocelyn (as the son, Richard) in a fractured mirror has got to lay claim to some affection among cinephiles. Apart from which, it is instructive to note the hallmarks of the classic Chabrol scenario: bourgeois family whose members detest one another, preoccupation with form and appearances, artistic/modernist trappings (Richard's obsession with classical music, the Japanese design of Léda's bungalow). Belmondo's performance is a trifle overripe at times, but it still makes one regret the director did not use him more often.