Twisting the Knife: Nightcap (2000) & The Flower of Evil (2003)(Review)

We are back on the Chabrol wagon for the 4th time (1, 2, & 3) in a few short months, following Arrow Video’s release of two boxsets, Lies & Deceit, and the recent Twisting the Knife. On Nightcap’s disc, there’s a visual essay by film critic, Scout Tafoya, called “When I pervert good…” – in which he states that Chabrol had achieved everything he could want as a filmmaker. He further supposed that any new film production was born from a love of the craft. An interesting hypothesis, one that the essay suggests the veteran french director used to support the next generation of his family and to tell stories of long-held fascinations. And while, in essence, true, that stance also gives the work in these two films an awful lot of undue credit.

Mika (Isabelle Hupert) is wife to respected pianist Andre Polonski (Jacques Dutronc) and step-mother to Guillaume (Rodolphe Pauly) in what is a vision of upper-middle-class French bliss. Until Jeanne (Anna Mouglalis) rocks up on the doorstep claiming that she may be Andre’s daughter due to a mix up at the hospital when she was born. A claim quickly put to bed – however, being a fellow pianist, Andre takes her under his wing. Unfortunately, with Jeanne spending so much time at their house, dark secrets that Mika would like to keep hidden begin to tumble free. The title is very telling about what those secrets are. The description of this being a mystery thriller doesn’t quite hit the mark. Nightcap is ostensibly a family drama with a sting in the tale where any mystery leaks out of its own volition, Inspector Lavardin is needed here.

I have no shame in admitting that I am far from the intended audience for either of these films. Much of the runtime is sedate and peaceful as it revolves in a perfectly respectable circle around the Muller/Polonski family and their guest. Chabrol, Charlotte Armstrong & Caroline Eliacheff’s script is as elegant & humbly acted as you’d expect of an Isabelle Houpert/Chabrol project. It is merely the sum of its parts, safe. Chabrol is again dipping his toe into a pool he’s visited many times before – he is casting an eye at French high society and what they get up to when they think no one is watching. The twist doesn’t so much announce itself as arrive with a subtlety so profound you might not even notice. The ending, too. When the game is over, it’s so subtle that they have time to stop for a few minutes and play a number on the piano. Described by some as a mystery thriller, it is anti-on both fronts making it an incredibly slow and ponderous watch.

If you get on with the characters and the world Chabrol is enamoured with, Nightcap becomes enjoyable within the canon of contemporary French films about the disintegration of the family. If not, the most interesting this deeply uncinematic film gets is a POV shot from the perspective of a car that crashes in the most civilized way. Fundamentally, for those not already on-board, Isabelle Houpert does all the heavy lifting.

The latter of my two charges is The Flower of Evil, a film that uses a horror-like title to tell another story of upper-middle-class shenanigans. This 2003 film follows a family in Bordeaux and their trials and tribulations. The mother, Anne (Nathalie Baye), is running for the soon-to-be-vacant major’s office. Her husband Francois (Bernard Le Coq) will invite any woman who looks his way to extra-curricular boot knocking back at his pharmacy office. In the next generation, kids of previous marriages are hooking up in a creepy little incestuous relationship that not one character brings up as problematic – Francois (Benoît Magimel) and Michele (Mélanie Doutey). The eldest member of the family, Aunt Line (Suzanne Flon), is seemingly the most well-adjusted of the bunch – what with her being the most likeable and charming character in the film. The drama of this family unit centres on Anne receiving a letter that may bring a premature end to her political aspirations. Well, it would if the two kids didn’t go away together for a weekend away, and the bickering of a family who doesn’t see eye-to-eye.

Subtlety is key again, with any investigation being so light to be almost unnoticeable. Further than that, no one directly admits guilt for sending the flyer. Instead, it is assumed guilt after a late-night drunken accident in another beautiful manor house. In that scene, where the two most charming characters have a heart-to-heart (aunt line and Michele) is where the real meaning of this flower of evil is. Joël Magny’s archival introduction talks of Chabrol’s influence: he tells of a famous crime whose perpetrator got away Scot-free for decades. Through these characters and his typical concerns, Chabrol suggests that decades of guilt are far worse a punishment than anything the justice system could pass down. A scene of haunting realisations with the excellent Suzanne Flon and Mélanie Doutey.

With two very similar plots, the sole difference between a film sinking and swimming is how you get on with the characters. In Aunt Line and Michele, he not only makes the unlikeable likeable, but they are also a delight to spend time with despite their copious shortfalls. In Nightcap, every creative decision appears to be an exercise in the mundane. An Anti-Thriller, an Anti-Mystery with little to sustain any character arc beyond a typically committed performance from Isabelle Huppert.

Rob on Nightcap (2000) & The Flower of Evil (2003)