I first saw The Flower of Evil a couple of years ago when I was on a ski trip in Val D’Isere, France. It was very confusing because, of course, there were no subtitles, and my French is poor.
The storyline of the movie takes place over a pre-election week in which an upper class woman runs for mayor of a small town. Her son has just arrived home from an extended stay in the US. This is one strange family, and apparently the weirdness goes back several generations.
After watching this film I begin to feel that I’m missing something about Chabrol’s films in general. I think that there’s some context about the French class system that’s being commented on, and I just don’t get it.
In fact, I think I just don’t “get” Chabrol overall. I’ve watched a lot of his movies:
Merci pour le chocolat (2000)
Rien ne va plus (1997)
La Cérémonie (1995)
L’Enfer (1994)
Betty (1992)
Les Innocents aux mains sales (1975)
La Rupture (1970)
Le Boucher (1970)
Que la bête meure (1969) – my favorite
La Femme infidèle (1969)
Les Biches (1968)
At best, they have a very strange, surreal quality. At worst, they seem like a bad episode of some 1970s crime drama. Why is he so enormously popular, exactly?
In any case, this particular movie is not one of Chabrol’s finest. But it’s ok; and maybe with the proper context I’d appreciate it more.
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