La rupture (1970)

Director:

Claude Chabrol

Writers:

Charlotte Armstrong (novel)
Claude Chabrol (writer)

Release Date:

26 August 1970 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Helene Regnier's husband Charles, who is mentally ill, injures their son Michel in a rage. Charles moves...

Plot Keywords:

Boarding House | Ex Stripper | Rooming House | Class Differences | Social Differences

Cast

Stéphane Audran	...	Hélène Régnier
Jean-Pierre Cassel	...	Paul Thomas
Michel Bouquet	...	Ludovic Régnier
Annie Cordy	...	Mme Pinelli
Jean-Claude Drouot	...	Charles Régnier
Mario Beccara
Serge Bento
Jean Carmet	...	Henri Pinelli
Marguerite Cassan	...	Emilie
Louise Chevalier	...	La deuxième parque
Suzy Falk
Pierre Gualdi
Harry Kümel
Daniel Lecourtois
Pierre Le Rumeur		(as Pierre Lerumeur)

Also Known As:

The Breach (UK) (USA)
All'ombra del delitto (Italy)
Hallucination (Europe: English title)
The Break Up (International: English title)
The Breakup (USA)

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

France | Italy | Belgium

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

France:-12 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | Argentina:16

Filming Locations:

Brussels, Brussels-Capital, Belgium

Company:

Ciné Vog Films

Totally Subversive And Profound

Though I've always found it difficult to stomach the parallels between Hitchcock and Chabrol (another user on this site highlighted the similarities Chabrol shares with Clouzot, a comparison that I concur with, Chabrol sharing Clouzot's moral ambiguity/overall weltschmerz), it would be foolhardy to deny the broad Hitchcockian flourishes here. Dipped and dredged in LSD, the hallucinatory sequences in here nod reverently to "Vertigo" and "Marnie". Yet, unlike some hitchcock staples (no gripes with Hitch here, he is after all my all time favorite director), there is nary a hint of escapism here. Instead, Chabrol plunges us head-first into the depths of modern complacency, a project that we are all complicit in.

The story itself is another virulently acerbic "thriller of manners" for Chabrol, capturing with Flaubertian honesty the farce upon which class distinctions are built. Other than Clouzot, I've always felt that Chabrol's work comes closest to Bunuel's (no surprise that Cassel and Audran would also feature in Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie)- he brings a blowtorch to insipid, self-satisfied, hypocritical civilization, and dares to gaze into the vacuous abyss beneath. Like Bunuel and Fassbinder, he does this with consummate style and infuses his films with cruelly ironic wit.

Chabrol's films are always unnerving to watch because they come too close for comfort, and never allow us to be self-satisfied. He asks some terribly important questions: at what price are bourgeois myths of propriety, morality and civilization bought? In "The Unfaithful Wife", murder is necessary to sustain the idyll, while this movie offers a profound dissection of bourgeois identity- in order for bourgeois "decorousness" and privilege to survive, it must posit an Other, the sordid, vulgar, ill-educated boor, even if it doesn't exist. Throughout "La Rupture" the viewer witnesses the creation of these supposed "absolutes", the unfurling of the absurd narrative that legitimizes bourgeois entitlement- sully, tar and feather the peasant, the Other. Like homophobia, class prejudice is only an expression of the precariousness of identity, without an opposite to define oneself against, the suppositions invariably crumble.

Chabrol is an acutely intelligent, courageous and singularly brilliant film maker. Don't miss this deconstructive masterpiece...as an examination of class, I think only "La Ceremonie" would surpass this one.

ps i can't help but wonder if the eccentric, insular boarding-house here is an homage to balzac's maison vauqeur in his incomparable "Old Goriot"- both the altruistic doctor (Bianchot) and the moustachioed, absurdly eloquent tempter (Vautrin) are parodied/mirrored here