The Flower of Evil

New Wave veteran Claude Chabrol has proved that one can make great films throughout a long, prolific career and his forty-ninth feature is no exception.

Set in the prosperous suburbs of Bordeaux, The Flower of Evil examines the successes and secrets of the bourgeois Charpin-Vasseur family. François Vasseur, after four years in the US, returns to the familial home in the middle of his step-mother’s (Anne-Charpin Vasseur) local election campaign. His father, Gérard Vasseur, is Anne’s deceased spouse’s brother, while François is romantically involved with his step-sister, Michèle Charpin-Vasseur. Presiding over this near incestuous world is the matriarch Tante Line. It soon becomes apparent that behind the photo shoots and graces of their class, a murky past lingers.

Chabrol has such a natural affinity to stories of murder and intrigue set among the provincial bourgeois classes that the whole affair seems effortless. The film skips along at an entertaining pace and draws the viewer in as if we were part of this societal group. It is through great attention to detail, characterisation and skilled narrative that Chabrol achieves the desired effect, as he makes the unofficial genre of the cinematic murder mystery novel his own. The social critique is made all the more biting through the emphasis on satire and humour, which sets this film apart from the rest of the director’s work.

Add to this Chabrol’s mark of production and technical quality, as well as a stellar cast (Nathalie Baye, Suzanne Flon, Benoît Magimel), and you have a film that is both intelligent and entertaining. No mean feat.