Les Diabolique (1955)

Two women, a wife and a mistress, plot a murder against their odious man.

The plot becomes the revelation of the perfect murder ploy. The conclusion of the perfect plan is forborne that its conclusion infiltrates the mind of the concerned viewer. The suspense story is punctuated by inexplicable supernatural factor. A body returnsfrom the death? The possibility of it, as absurd as it may sound, rings a baneful tone in the suspicious mind of the viewer.

H.G. Clouzot installs the characters in vulnerable positions to expose their true colors when a counterpart missteps. The five adults live at the expense of this residue after the fall. All of the characters suffer against their will in order to achieve a greater reward. Every soul inferior to the prefect Mr. Delasalle (Paul Meurisse) is lambasted and so reminded of their inferiority. The two male teachers bear the callousness of the school prefect, while the wife and lover of this depraved man withstand the most repugnant and overt of physical and verbal abuses. Not to mention the incorrigible brood immured in a dilapidating school that serves spoiled fish for dinner and shelters a symbolic sludgy recreational pool.

The sympathy propelled by the gyrating plot leans towards the wife. The dark countenance of Christina (Vera Clouzot) permits the express contribution of emotions to Clouzot’s (her husband) favorite cinematic syntax, the close-up. Each close-up enhances the darkening story plot. The black-and-white format tolerates the covering of the mystery prowling behind the shadows, doors, and hallways of the phantasmagorical school. Clouzot’s executions of such thrilling devices spar against our logic with every passing minute and every skipped beat of Christina’s heart.

Reinvigorated by the close-ups, the visual language gains a distinct punctuation. The meticulous shots of raised eye-brows, sheathed hands in gloves, and moving doors, muddle judgment until the impacting revelation of the climax. The film’s conclusion is not hard to surmise. Like the redolence of a long marinated dish, it is not the anticipation but the touch before delivery that makes the preparations worth the while. The film “Les Diaboliques” brews sequences of spectacular tension to resolve in of one of the few well-crafted murders ever witnessed on the movie screen.

It is subtle, it’s deadly and it targets the victim’s weakest point. The accelerating beat of the heart is juxtaposed to rate of the suspense. The pace of the film is measured according to the pulsation of the weakening heart. I don’t know if it is Christina’s heart amplifying the tension or if the suspense is increasing despite the weakening heart. What I know is that the finale dwarves most other finales, except perhaps Sixth Sense and Hitchock’s Psycho. Clouzot, the contemporary opposite of Hitchcock himself, twists the plot one more time to reveal a scene that causes stupor. Buried by the simplicity, modesty and the mundane make-up required, the scene could not impress a modern day toddler. Yet it runs to the gamut of gut emotions just like any of the modern horror movies suffused in gore and mutilation, i.e. Saw quadrilogy and the Hostel franchise.

The pace at which Clouzot turns the screw in this suspense can asphyxiate the patience of the modern viewer. Legions of mediocre films pretending to replicate the mastery of this piece have corrupted the ability to savor the richness in the delivery of suspense. Rather than utilizing the industry’s ample supply of creative oxygen, the mediocre attempts to greatness by imitation result in the attrition of a filmic signpost.