My previous run in with Chabrol left me a bit clueless as to what kind of director he is. La Route de Corinthe didn’t leave me particularly impressed, but then I was reminded that it was far from any of Chabrol’s better films, and considering I still had 15 unwatched films by him, I continued my chronological journey through his canon. The next film in line is Les Biches, which actually means The Doves, but I immediately thought it meant The Bitches, and after watching the film that would actually have been a more appropriate title. Anyway…
Chabrol is known as the French equivalent of Hitchcock, although in this film that is not too apparent. This is a character drama, and one of the better I’ve seen. One of the strongest points about the film is that it is a very visual film, there is not much dialogue, but the characters are still well rounded and the narrative seems quite clear. Their psychological state is almost effortlessly conveyed, and this is the thing that makes the film superb in my opinion. The drama is centred on two women who are in a relationship, although their sexuality remains fairly ambiguous. The slightly older woman, Frédérique, picks up a young woman, Why (yes, her name is Why) from the streets who is poor and makes a living by drawing on the streets. Frédérique is wealthy and brings her to a house she owns in the country, with servants and two gentlemen who I was never sure what exactly were there for, but for the purpose of the film itself served as comic relief. Actually, they work quite well as comic relief, and have a couple of funny scenes. Not stupid funny, like in La Route de Corinthe, but small touches, nice little visual moments, and at the same time never really takes away focus from the core of the film. The tension and core of the film is built up when the two women start to despise each other, and leads into a strong love and hate relationship where they attempt to hurt each other. The foil for this is Paul, a charming architect, who engages with both women.
I’ve read several people describing this as a love triangle, but I don’t agree with this position. The story is about the two women, the guy is simply a tool for them to spite each other. He is a shallow character, and has throughout the film no idea what he is actually part of. He happily goes on in the narrative, naïve of the battle of mind between the two women. But the film in its wonderful way never spell anything out, and it is open to interpretation whether they love each other or they love him, or one loves the other but the other loves the guy. Another reason why I DON’T believe this is a love triangle, is because the film spends so much time exploring the two female leads, but spends so very little time with Paul, it feels at times as if he is a prop, and I feel this is a fairly accurate description of his character. He might not be very interesting, but surely evokes something interesting in the two women. This whole conflict is portrayed through nice little visual moments. There is a scene where Frédérique has some guests over for poker. This is the start of the tension between the characters, but nothing is ever said, only subtle little touches and following the eyes of the characters. There are several such scenes, and they work really well, and one scene in particular sticks with me, but its not interesting discussing it here.
Now we come to the part of the review (or whatever this is) where we make formulaic comments on cinematography, acting and so forth, so let’s just get it over with. The cinematography is beautiful and simple, is accompanied by similarly beautiful music. The acting on the two leads is superb, the rest of the cast remains a bit anonymous, but that’s okay, considering they’re not that interesting. The directing has flair, is precise and visual, in other words, brilliant. Actually, this film seem much more formative than most Nouvelle Vague films I’ve seen, but I think this might have something to do with it being released fairly late in the 60’s. The editing works, the films pace really lends to the whole feel, its fairly slow but lends a hypnotic sense to the film.
Les Biches was a nice watch, foremost, visual storytelling, which is always nice. I’ve got a feeling this is a stronger hint to what Claude Chabrol has to offer compared to La Route de Corinthe. I don’t quite see why people compare him to Hitchcock, but I guess that will come when I see more of his films, I’ve still got 14 more on my shelf. Anyway, great film, really recommend it, at times incredible.
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