Les Diaboliques - Lisa's Review

I start this weeks movie with a surprise announcement!  I enjoyed a movie from 1955!!  There are of course a few old movies I love, but in general this is not the rule.  It's a great thing to have another movie to challenge my norm.

So, the movie.  Les Diaboliques as I'm sure you have already gathered is a french movie.  It is directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.  Rather than put this movie in the 'horror' section, I would err more to the side of thriller.  There is a suggestion of the paranormal within the movie, but not so much as to pull it away from the realms of thriller.

The movie follows the story of a love triangle.  Maybe I should say hate triangle.  The setting is a boarding school for boys, run by the horrid misogynistic Michel Delassalle, but owned by his impossibly beautiful, but very ill wife Christina.  Making up the triangle is Michels mistress Nicole Horner who teaches at the school.

Michel is a violent, abusive, angry man who not only mentally and physically abuses his wife, but also his mistress Nicole.  He stays with his frail and sickly wife, who has a heart condition only to wait for her death so he inherits the school she owns,  Together, his wife and mistress, tired of the abuse, decide that they will get rid of him, by any means necessary.

Nicole who is most definately the more worldly-wise and scheming of the two women hatches a plot to kill Michel and get away with it.  Christina, although initially aghast at the idea, hastilly changes her mind after another night of abuse at the hands of her beast of a husband.

I don't want to go into detail about the plan or how they carry it out, I will say however that things take a sinister turn when it seems that the plan did not go as expected.  Frail Christina is frantic with worry as to whether they were unsuccessful in their plan or whether Michel has returned from another place to exact his revenge.  Nicole remains confident and unfaltering.  Can she convince Christina not to spill the beans about their evil plan?  It's not easy keeping anything hidden with a private detective who was once a Police Commissioner sniffing around.

As more inexplicable things happen, it appears Christinas bad heart may not take anything more, making everything she has gone through fruitless.  Are things really as they seem though?  Or maybe the movie has more to throw at us.

I really enjoyed this movie right from the start.  I feel the excellent characters and solid acting were to thank for that.  The storyline was interesting and nothing felt inevitable as is usually the case with most movies.  I watched this, with honestly no idea where we were going, which is the best way to watch a movie.   Maybe the more astute viewer (like Will) will have predicted the direction the movie would take, but I was blissfully unaware, just enjoying the ride.

It is with great but pleasant surprise that I highly recommend this one.