Les Diaboliques (French: [le djabɔlik], released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends) is a 1955 French psychological horror thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel.
Forced to live under the same roof with Nicole Horner, the peroxide-blonde mistress of her abusive school headmaster husband Michel Delassalle, his fragile and chronically-ill wife Christina decides that enough is enough. In a desperate attempt to free herself from her oppressive spouse, simpering Christina summons up the courage to form an uneasy alliance with equally-mistreated Nicole, and together they concoct a meticulously-designed scheme. The stage seems set for the perfect revenge plot, and in the sleepy town of Niort, the curtain will fall on eight long, loveless years of maltreatment. However, there is no such thing as a foolproof plan. Can the heartless she-devils get away with murder?
This film was the 10th-highest grossing film of the year in France, with a total of 3,674,380 admissions. Later it would go on to receive the 1954 Louis Delluc Prize, and its not hard to see why this movie is in the criterion collection. Every second of this movie is absolutely gorgeous, and all of the characters are wonderfully subtle in there acting style in a time where everybody seemed to be acting for the stage rather than the screen.
a prime example of these incredible characters is the least likeable man of the movie, abusive school headmaster Michel Delassalle. Media tends to only show the psychical side of an abusive relationship, and never really touch on the smaller more nefarious details. The total lack of free will, the constant mind games, the sideways glances, the hyper vigilance, the far less cinematic daily acts of cruelty that the victims have to suffer through mostly in silence. He is an intelligent man who knows how to manipulate you to create the maximum amount of guilt shame and pain, and he is one of the more disturbing characters in film history. Even if he kinda looks like Pee Wee in some shots...
This movie doesn't fully avoid the overly dramatic, but it happens so rarely that every character feels like a real person doing the best they can with what they have. The long suffering housewife Nicole has damn good reason to be such a bitch, and at no point does it feel like she is hamming it up for the camera. Christina hams it up far more, but her role of the goody two shoes coerced into murder sort of demands her to be far more Woe is Me and it never goes into full blown bad actor territory. The murder itself actually is played quite subtly with 0 music whatsoever, and it gives us her strongest performance of this movie so far.
Key word so far.
Genre wise, this really isn't a horror movie. Its more so a murderous thriller that focuses more on suspense and character than attempting to scare you, but as we enter act to it slowly begins to curdle into horror territory. A sort of Tell Tale Heart story of paranoia and guilt slowly consuming you to brink of madness type deal that is once again wonderfully subtle and played totally straight. a great example of this movies subtly happens right before dumping Michael into the pool. we get a quick shot of the corpse inside the big old basket before it closes, and it provokes an honest scare with attention drawn to it whatsoever. It also makes the pool a wonderful bit of suspense as you wait for the body to surface, and when it never does it kicks off a damn good mystery.
And spoiling this damn good mystery would be the greatest crime i could ever commit. The end credits of this movie actually contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message." translated from French, the message reads
Don't be DIABOLICAL!
Do not destroy the interest that your friends may have in this movie.
Do not tell them what you have seen.
Thank you, on their behalf.
When this movie first came out, Bosley Crowther gave the film an enthusiastic review in The New York Times, calling it
"One of the dandiest mystery dramas that has shown here. a pip of a murder, thriller, ghost story, and character play rolled into one. the writing and the visual construction are superb, and the performance by top-notch French actors on the highest level of sureness and finesse."
And that is the best possible way to explain this masterpiece of a movie.
10/10
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