Diabolique (1955)

Wonderful character development!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

...or, more exactly you feel it. the motivation of characters. the atmosphere of school. the relation between Christina and Nicole. and, sure, the end. who, if you see for the first time, it is more than impressive. that did it one of challenge - film. not only for the story and acting. but for the chance to discover a high quality thriller. a film who easy coul be defined as legendary. for a simple motif - it seems perfect. not only as Henry Clouzot work but for so many suggestions for imagine a version by Hitchcock. because all the small ordinary details are present. all what you expect becomes more than shown in admirable manner. the fragility of Vera Clouzot. the cold force of Simone Signoret. and, sure, the performance of Paul Meurisset. a beautiful work. admirable for each scene .

Since the age of 6, I've lived in the village where the school scenes were shot (that castle was at the time abandoned and Clouzot wanted to buy it to get his studios inside, but it was too expensive, now it's the Town Hall since 1968). Each time I went to school (not the movie's one), I kept thinking of that horrific movie and when I saw it at 15, I was quite impressed, discovering Clouzot's Noir filmography.Like the townspeople watching at the shooting and how the beautiful castle had become sinister, full of mud all around. During the shooting since three weeks, all the team was completely sad and sinister, shooting night and day. They got more joyful when eating in the local restaurants. A lot of villagers came at the gate to watch with excitement all the famous team shooting one of the most well known classic thrillers. Clouzot never shot again in that village, and no other movie was shot there.

I watched 'Diabolique' for the first time in 2017, which means 62 years after its initial release in theaters and yet it managed to completely knock me off my feet with Henri-Georges Clouzot's meticulous direction and an ultimate reveal which even after all these years has the power to knock anyone's socks off. 'Diabolique' is truly a timeless piece of work.

A second-rate boarding school on the outskirts of Paris is run by the tyrannical and mean Michel Delassalle (Meurisse). The school is owned, though, by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina (Clouzot). Delassalle also has a relationship with Nicole Horner (Signoret), another teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women are shown to have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel, who is physically and emotionally abusive to both, as well as unkind to the children.Unable to stand his mistreatment any longer, Nicole devises a plan to get rid of Michel forever. Though hesitant at first, Christina ultimately consents to help Nicole. Using a threatened divorce to lure Michel to Nicole's apartment building in a town several hundred kilometers away, Christina sedates him. The two women then drown him in a bathtub and, driving back to the school, dump his body in the neglected swimming pool. When his corpse floats to the surface, they think it will appear to have been an accident. Almost everything goes according to their plans until the body fails to surface. Michel's corpse is nowhere to be found when the pool is drained.Nicole sees in the paper that the police have found the corpse. However, when Christina goes to the morgue, she finds it is not actually Michel's body. There she meets Alfred Fichet (Vanel), a retired senior policeman now working as a private detective. He becomes involved in the case, much to Nicole's chagrin.