miercuri, 1 mai 2019

Les Cousins, written and directed by Claude Chabrol - 8.2 out of 10


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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