La Femme infidèle

The first of Chabrol’s great run of bourgeois psychological thrillers traces the fallout following a husband’s discovery of his wife’s affair. From 1968’s Les Biches to 1971’s Juste avant la nuit, Chabrol made half a dozen psychological thrillers that, in the words of critic Derek Malcolm ‘have never been equalled’. La Femme infidèle is both the simplest and the most potent. A husband discovers his wife’s affair and responds with unnerving politeness and an act of violence that is as much an act of love as revenge. Audran, the filmmaker’s wife and regular collaborator, is luminous and opaque in equal measure, embodying the film’s central paradox: a woman who is both its apparent subject and its most elusive presence. Bouquet, as the wronged husband, takes his devastating revenge with the quiet efficiency of a man settling an account. And the ending lands like a cold hand on the shoulder.

Catherine Wheatley, Claude Chabrol: Elements of Crime season curator

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