Sunday, September 2, 2012

A DOUBLE TOUR (French) (1959)


Though critics shouted influence of Hitchcock in Chabrol cinema, here’s a wonder to check that a year prior to Hitchcock masterpiece ‘Psycho’, Chabrol portrayed the psychological thrill-drama of a mother obsessed young man committed a murder under insanity. Well, this one is quite early Chabrol, shot in color with Jean Paul Belmondo as lead. Compared to some of his brilliant films of seventies, this one is too average one but nevertheless recommended one for his admirers. The Film begins with a young dame exposing and playing provocative mischief from a window towards other working class men like gardener and milkman, similarly a voyeaur is peeping her through keyhole- bourgeois characters belong to a family under single roof with a strange entry of dame and a nasty young man- an affair started disrupting the marital life of a mid age couple- after slowly set the characters and plot of bourgeoisie drama, a sudden murder of lady takes the film towards different direction of crime

The film represents early and young Belmondo prior ‘Breathless’ and he’s as nasty as nasty can. His breakfast table scene with the lady of house is the scene dipped with humor. I just love the way French wave film-makers portrayed mirror and reflection in their frames in some of the key scenes and this one is certainly not an exception. Nothing much to say about Henri Decae’s camera work but what’s thing to watch here is the way Chabrol cleverly done the creative construction of narrative joining the normal sequences into jigsaw pieces. Together they touched multiple human vices ranging from obsession, jealousy, instinctive urge to anger and guilt.

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