DVD Review: Diabolique - Criterion BD Edition

Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Score: 8.0

The opening credit sequence for Henri Georges-Clouzot’s classic mystery thriller is illuminating precisely for what it does not do. It has no action, no tricky sequencing or mini-narrative of its own. Instead, it’s nearly completely static: a single shot of the murky surface of a pool, algae and leaves clumped over the surface. The only motion is the slight ripple in the breeze, shimmering the reflection of the trees around it. By the end of its nearly two minutes of screen time, you’ve been forced to consider this dark, uninviting water, left to wonder just what it might be suggesting.

Much is murky and unseen in the dappled depths of this taut masterpiece of atmosphere and deception. On its surface, the film is about the tangled murder plot between two unlikely allies – Christina (Vera Clouzot), the abused wife of cruel husband Michel Delassalle, played by Paul Meurisse; and Nicole (Simone Signoret), the man’s mistress. Together, the three of them work at the same boarding school for boys, where Michel is the headmaster and Christina the principal. She is wealthy but sick with a weakened heart. Apparently dumped by her lover, bitter Nicole pushes former rival Christina to take action against her brute of a husband, whom she claims has plans to kill her and make off with her fortune. The two women hatch a complicated murder plot that involves luring him away from the school over to Nicole’s apartment several hours away, where they will drug and drown him, then returning the body to the school under cover of darkness, and slipping it undetected into the brackish “chocolate soup” water of the pool and play dumb when the corpse is eventually found. The problem is, even after they drain the water, the body is never recovered, and an increasing number of signs seem to indicate Michel is somehow, someway very much alive.

Of course, in murder mysteries, the body – hiding it, disposing of it, making sure the victim is actually dead – is nearly always the trickiest bit. What sets this film apart, aside from its rich performances and sumptuous photography by DP Armand Thirard, is the way it atmospherically influences your perception of things. No one, save perhaps Charles Vanel’s wizened retired police commissioner, comes out of this thing a hero, everyone is stuck in the muck and sediment of the bottom. Clearly influential on everything from Psycho (Hitch was a big fan) to Blood Simple, Clouzot’s dark vision loses very little more than five-and-a-half decades after it was released.



This BD edition is stuffed with notable extras, including selected scene commentaries from film scholar Kelley Conway, a video interview with film critic Kim Newman, the original trailer, and a booklet with an essay by former New Yorker film critic, Terrence Rafferty.