Les Cousins,
written and directed by Claude Chabrol
8.2 out of
10
Les Cousins
is included on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, accessible
here:
it has also
won the Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival of 1959…
The motion
picture is an interesting, alert, modern, complex, challenging look at French
society.
Gerard Blain
is very good in the role of Charles, a young, aspiring provincial who arrives
in Paris.
Jean-Claude
Brialy is also formidable as Paul Thomas, the sophisticated, urbane, somewhat
vicious, epicurean, haughty, also perverted cousin who would offer his
hospitality to his cousin.
The two
represent different, opposing rather character types, with the one arrived from
‘la campagne’ presenting the archetype of the innocent – he is still a virgin –
austere, pure man.
Meanwhile,
the city dweller is decadent, throws parties where the guests never stop
arriving, he is flirting with so many women, superficial, uninvolved, showing a
certain ‘ennui’, but also at times the reverse…’une joie de vivre’
Charles is very
serious and hardworking, as a student he is very dedicated to learning, while
his cousin would not make the effort and tries to sail through university
without bothering to study.
Charles is fascinated,
mesmerized by Florence, when he meets her at one of the gigs that take place so
often in Paul’s apartment, which is now shared by the two relatives and their
many visitors.
One of the
guests is very upset and jealous when the young woman he is taken with shows an
interest in someone else.
He would jump
and suffer an accident because of his jealousy and suffering, making Charles think
of dramatic gestures later, in his own turn.
The man
from the countryside is a romantic and is so emotional and shy that he cannot
utter the words he thinks about when elated, enthusiastic in the presence of
the ravishing Florence.
He whispers
in her ear and mentions that he has written a poem, but he does not dare say
it.
The two
grow ever closer, but we are reminded of Pierre Choderlos de la Laclos and his
Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
For the
scheming Paul, with the help of one of his corrupted friends, insists that
Florence cannot possibly enjoy a close relationship with the man from la campagne
and she will be bored.
Meanwhile,
the serious, erudite, intellectual Charles visits a library, where the
librarian is enchanted to meet a reader of serious, classic literature, for he
complains that the modern buyers are only interested in crime stories, soft
porn works and similar trash culture.
The young
man is asking for Balzac and that makes the librarian so happy that he offers
him any work by the great genius as a gift, even if the disappointed young man
would return later with the books.
Paul Thomas
with the help of his Iago manages to confuse Florence, who was supposed to meet
with the innocent man who loved her sincerely, and makes her come to the
apartment.
Charles is waiting
near the university, while the one he admires and worships is psychologically
attacked by the perverse, astute, machiavellic cousin who ends up convincing
her that she is better with him.
Charles pretends
to be indifferent at the news that his cousin and the one he loves are now a
couple and tries to joke by saying that he would have his turn and then watch
them in their intimacy.
It must be
extremely tormenting to suffer the torture of watching the loved one have a
shower, only separated by a glass that only slightly hides the body and then
see her partner join her and their shadows seemingly copulate.
The chance
that you read this and then take the daunting, perhaps impossible task to find
this 60-year-old motion picture is as slim as to make it more likely that you
win five hundred million dollars at a lottery…say one in a billion.
Therefore,
a spoiler might seem in order here, but I will just say that it does not fit
the ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ scenario.
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