"It may take six months," writes Charles Thenier in a diary he has begun, "or one or two years, but I'll find him. I'll make friends with him. I'll wait patiently. When he's trapped, I'll look at him with a smile, directly in the eye. And I'll make him deserve his death."
Thenier, a widower, has just seen his young son killed by a hit-and-run driver. The car was speeding through the narrow streets, struck the boy and didn't pause. When the police cannot find the driver, Thenier (Michel Duchaussey) is determined to do so himself. Then he'll kill the driver. This Man Must Die is one of Claude Chabrol's most elegant and tensest thrillers, with a conclusion that some might find ambiguous but which I found sad but emotionally satisfying. Thenier begins his search with a description of the car. He visits every garage he can think of. Almost by chance he learns of a car that had a fender repaired by the man who most likely was driving the car, the man who owns a repair garage. Thenier arranges a chance meeting with the other person in the car, the actress Helen Lanson (Caroline Celler), whose brother-in-law he finally learns was the driver. He seduces her and then arranges to accompany her for a few days visit to the man's home in Brittany near the coast. Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne) is the man, and his wife is Helen's sister. Decourt and his wife have a teen-aged son, Phillippe (Marc Di Napoli). Paul Decourt is a loathsome bully. If anyone should believe in evil, Decourt would be an example. He's not just loud, coarse and contemptuous of others. He amuses himself by humiliating his wife in public and dominating his son. He beds the maid and his partner's wife openly. He ignores anyone's feelings and opinion's but his own. His wife is intimidated...and his son wants him dead. During the time Thenier spends in Decourt's home he comes to know Phillippe, and the boy can sense that Thenier wants to kill Decourt, too.
"Lovers often hesitate," Thenier writes in the diary, "not out of shyness but to prolong their awaiting happiness. I, full of hatred, am savoring what awaits me. His killing will only be a gesture of a man throwing away the used peel of a fruit slowly enjoyed to the pit." Ah, yes...the diary. Decourt discovers it and keeps it, and a crucial question is whether or not Thenier set him up to find it. What at first was an obsessed and understandable pursuit of revenge and murder on the part of Charles Thenier now also is complicated by Phillippe's own determination. The diary may be Thenier's outlet for his thoughts, but it also could be a clever tool of self-protection. What we know for sure is that Decourt shortly after dies in agony. The police investigate and decide Thenier is probably the number one suspect. Yet when Phillippe intervenes we're not so sure. We're left with a satisfying tale of revenge and retribution, but also of sacrifice and of a kind of morality. After all, once a person has exacted his revenge, what's left?
The title of the movie comes from Ecclesiastes by way of Brahms, titled "Vier Ernste Gesange." Here's a part worth thinking about...
For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust and all turn to dust again.
Thenier, a widower, has just seen his young son killed by a hit-and-run driver. The car was speeding through the narrow streets, struck the boy and didn't pause. When the police cannot find the driver, Thenier (Michel Duchaussey) is determined to do so himself. Then he'll kill the driver. This Man Must Die is one of Claude Chabrol's most elegant and tensest thrillers, with a conclusion that some might find ambiguous but which I found sad but emotionally satisfying. Thenier begins his search with a description of the car. He visits every garage he can think of. Almost by chance he learns of a car that had a fender repaired by the man who most likely was driving the car, the man who owns a repair garage. Thenier arranges a chance meeting with the other person in the car, the actress Helen Lanson (Caroline Celler), whose brother-in-law he finally learns was the driver. He seduces her and then arranges to accompany her for a few days visit to the man's home in Brittany near the coast. Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne) is the man, and his wife is Helen's sister. Decourt and his wife have a teen-aged son, Phillippe (Marc Di Napoli). Paul Decourt is a loathsome bully. If anyone should believe in evil, Decourt would be an example. He's not just loud, coarse and contemptuous of others. He amuses himself by humiliating his wife in public and dominating his son. He beds the maid and his partner's wife openly. He ignores anyone's feelings and opinion's but his own. His wife is intimidated...and his son wants him dead. During the time Thenier spends in Decourt's home he comes to know Phillippe, and the boy can sense that Thenier wants to kill Decourt, too.
"Lovers often hesitate," Thenier writes in the diary, "not out of shyness but to prolong their awaiting happiness. I, full of hatred, am savoring what awaits me. His killing will only be a gesture of a man throwing away the used peel of a fruit slowly enjoyed to the pit." Ah, yes...the diary. Decourt discovers it and keeps it, and a crucial question is whether or not Thenier set him up to find it. What at first was an obsessed and understandable pursuit of revenge and murder on the part of Charles Thenier now also is complicated by Phillippe's own determination. The diary may be Thenier's outlet for his thoughts, but it also could be a clever tool of self-protection. What we know for sure is that Decourt shortly after dies in agony. The police investigate and decide Thenier is probably the number one suspect. Yet when Phillippe intervenes we're not so sure. We're left with a satisfying tale of revenge and retribution, but also of sacrifice and of a kind of morality. After all, once a person has exacted his revenge, what's left?
The title of the movie comes from Ecclesiastes by way of Brahms, titled "Vier Ernste Gesange." Here's a part worth thinking about...
For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust and all turn to dust again.