I just watched Merci pour le Chocolat, a low-key but intense French/Swiss thriller that's called Nightcap in the English speaking world. Don't know why. "Thanks for the chocolate" sounds plenty catchy to me. It's directed by Claude Chabrol, known as the biggest Hitchcock fan among the French New Wave. It shows. He's actually influenced by Hitch, whereas Brian de Palma has always seemed more influenced by TV. Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily.
It's kind of a cat and mouse game played between a young conservatory student; an older musician who might be her father, which for reasons delineated in the film no one can quite know for sure; and his wife, an executive in her family's chocolate business. This last is played by Isabelle Huppert, who's worked in Hollywood and looks a little like a redheaded Jessica Lange.
The camera is always moving, and does so in a conscious, directed way. The color palette is muted, the way European and especially Francophile films tend to be. Even in the poshest scenes you want to check for water damage. But in one scene Huppert turns the light out at night, wide awake, and the space around her remains bright. This is a very Old Hollywood expressionist touch.
It's kind of a cat and mouse game played between a young conservatory student; an older musician who might be her father, which for reasons delineated in the film no one can quite know for sure; and his wife, an executive in her family's chocolate business. This last is played by Isabelle Huppert, who's worked in Hollywood and looks a little like a redheaded Jessica Lange.
The camera is always moving, and does so in a conscious, directed way. The color palette is muted, the way European and especially Francophile films tend to be. Even in the poshest scenes you want to check for water damage. But in one scene Huppert turns the light out at night, wide awake, and the space around her remains bright. This is a very Old Hollywood expressionist touch.
2 comments:
We haven't seen this one but it's always a treat to watch an Isabelle Huppert film. The most recent one we saw was Elle where she plays a very memorable screen character, the divorced head of a video game developing company who doesn't appear to actually like anyone. She is raped in the first scene of this combination of thriller and psychological drama. After that all else seems to be coloured by this shocking violation by a masked and costumed home invader. Besides the obvious question as to his identity, the less than satisfactory one is whether or not she enjoyed it. The movie avoids all clichés, it's not predictable for a second yet it's always a plausible story superbly told. As you mentioned about Chocolat the 'cat and mouse' aspect is very much in evidence in this one too.
Thanks for letting us know about Merci pour le Chocolat. Happily, our library has a copy (French w English subtitles - natch) and you've made it sound so interesting it's now on our order list.
I think I have heard of Elle. Which is of course French for "she." It sounds like a tense movie and quite possibly upsetting, but those can be interesting areas to explore. I'll see if I can round up a copy.
If you did see Merci pour le Chocolat I hope you enjoyed it. It turns out that it's based on a novel by the same woman who wrote the novel that Don't Bother to Knock was based on. Which is just an incredible coincidence from my perspective.
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