SouthbankClaude Chabrol: Elements of Crime
Beneath the elegantly composed surfaces of Claude Chabrol’s bourgeois thrillers lies something altogether more poisonous: a cinema of corrosive irony, wicked wit and simmering violence.
‘Chabrol has his own way of creating suspense and tension that no one else can match.’
– Bong Joon Ho
Few directors have mapped the darkness beneath respectable surfaces with quite the wit, precision and relentless productivity of Claude Chabrol. Over a career spanning some 50 years and 80-odd films, he spun wicked thriller after wicked thriller, skewering the French bourgeoisie and exposing the seam of malice behind the most elegant of veneers.
Dubbed the ‘French Hitchcock’ Chabrol’s films share affinities with thriller writers such as Georges Simenon, Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell, each of whose work he adapted. But he is also a kindred spirit to the most recent generation of Korean filmmakers – Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan Wook both cite Chabrol as a key influence. Cool, precise, and wryly entertaining, his films are a peculiar cocktail of the mundane and murderous, the ordinary and the obscene. Bringing together a selection of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from his 1958 debut Le Beau Serge to 2007’s The Girl Cut in Two, this season shines a light on some of the most compelling poisoners and bludgeoners, stranglers and swindlers in cinema.
Catherine Wheatley, season curator
With thanks to
Tamasa Distribution.
Re-release
La Femme infidèle
The first of Chabrol’s great run of bourgeois psychological thrillers follows the fall-out from a husband discovering his wife’s affair.
La Femme infidèle + intro by Claude Chabrol’s daughter and collaborator Cécile Maistre-Chabrol
The first of Chabrol’s great run of bourgeois psychological thrillers follows the fall-out from a husband discovering his wife’s affair.
Events
Claude Chabrol Season Introduction
This primer on the great French filmmaker explores the themes that dominate his work and why he remains one of the key directors to emerge from the French New Wave.
Philosophical Screens: Le Boucher
The Philosophical Screens team shine a light on arguably Claude Chabrol’s finest film.
Mean Girls: Claude Chabrol’s Dangerous Women
This discussion looks at the elements that draw us to the complex, morally ambiguous and compelling female characters that populate Claude Chabrol’s work.
The Girl Cut in Two + Q&A with Claude Chabrol’s daughter and collaborator Cécile Maistre-Chabrol
A naïve TV weather girl is fought over by two very different men – with fatal consequences – in Chabrol’s late, crackling study of female objectification and class contempt.
Season programme
Le Beau Serge
Often cited as the first French New Wave film, Chabrol’s debut finds violence and despair lurking in the daily rhythms of provincial life.
Le Beau Serge + intro by academic Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze
Often cited as the first French New Wave film, Chabrol’s debut finds violence and despair lurking in the daily rhythms of provincial life.
À double tour
Chabrol’s gleefully transgressive film is a gorgeous Provençal murder mystery in which a dangerous interloper exposes the rot at the heart of a wealthy family.
The Third Lover
A freelance journalist insinuates himself into the life of a painter and his partner, in this early study in voyeurism and manipulation.
Les Biches
Two women fall into a dangerously tangled relationship over a winter in Saint-Tropez, in Chabrol’s seductive riff on Patricia Highsmith.
The Beast Must Die
A grieving father sets out to murder his son’s killer, only to find the moral ground constantly shifting beneath him.
The Beast Must Die + intro by critic, lecturer and programmer Geoff Andrew
A grieving father sets out to murder his son’s killer, only to find the moral ground constantly shifting beneath him.
Le Boucher
Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village.
Le Boucher + intro by season curator Catherine Wheatley
Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village.
La Rupture
A woman attempting to escape her volatile husband finds herself ensnared in a conspiracy that grows steadily, sickeningly out of control.
Juste avant la nuit
A man is driven mad with guilt after he accidentally kills his mistress, but his wife has good reason for wanting him to remain quiet.
Ten Days’ Wonder
Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins play a toxic father and son in this modern-day Greek tragedy, in which crime reveals itself as the logical extension of an unchecked patriarchal appetite.
Ten Days’ Wonder + intro by season curator Catherine Wheatley
Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins play a toxic father and son in this modern-day Greek tragedy, in which crime reveals itself as the logical extension of an unchecked patriarchal appetite.
Wedding in Blood
Two married lovers plot to murder their respective spouses in this caustic, briefly-banned portrait of provincial suffocation and the twisted logic of desire.
Violette Nozière
Isabelle Huppert, in the first of seven collaborations with Chabrol, brings her trademark opacity to the true story of a young Parisian woman who leads a dangerous double life.
Violette Nozière + intro by academic Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze
Isabelle Huppert, in the first of seven collaborations with Chabrol, brings her trademark opacity to the true story of a young Parisian woman who leads a dangerous double life.
The Hatter’s Ghost
Michel Serrault and Charles Aznavour play cat and mouse in this hidden treasure about a respectable Norman hatter with a very dark secret.
The Cry of the Owl
When the object of a man’s voyeuristic obsession looks back, the boundaries between victim and perpetrator begin to blur, in Chabrol’s most Hitchcockian thriller.
Story of Women
Isabelle Huppert is ferocious as a working-class woman who finds independence in performing illegal abortions under the German occupation, in one of the great performances of her career.
La Cérémonie
In Chabrol’s late masterpiece, an adaptation of a Ruth Rendell novel, class resentment accumulates with the patience of a pressure cooker when a wealthy family hire a new housekeeper.
La Cérémonie + extended intro on queer Chabrol by academic Kit Francis Bradbury Rance
In Chabrol’s late masterpiece, an adaptation of a Ruth Rendell novel, class resentment accumulates with the patience of a pressure cooker when a wealthy family hire a new housekeeper.
The Swindle
Isabelle Huppert sparkles as one half of a pair of con artists grifting their way along the Swiss-French border – until a mark with his own agenda complicates everything.
The Swindle + intro by Claude Chabrol’s daughter and collaborator Cécile Maistre-Chabrol
Isabelle Huppert sparkles as one half of a pair of con artists grifting their way along the Swiss-French border – until a mark with his own agenda complicates everything.
The Colour of Lies
When a young girl is found murdered in a Breton coastal town, a community begins to devour itself, in this thriller about the social poison that a crime unleashes.
The Bridesmaid
This heady Ruth Rendell adaptation sees a shy young man fall into an all-consuming affair with a compulsive fantasist who will shortly ask him to prove his love in the most extreme terms imaginable.
The Bridesmaid + intro by season curator Catherine Wheatley
This heady Ruth Rendell adaptation sees a shy young man fall into an all-consuming affair with a compulsive fantasist who will shortly ask him to prove his love in the most extreme terms imaginable.
The Girl Cut in Two
A naïve TV weather girl is fought over by two very different men – with fatal consequences – in Chabrol’s late, crackling study of female objectification and class contempt.
Want more?
The BFI will be releasing a selection of Claude Chabrol’s films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2027.
Temporary VAT-reduced rate for children: prices have been adjusted for all under 16’s tickets booked between 25 June and 1 September for screenings during the same period.
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