All comments bar one are very negative ,no one mentions writer Ellery Queen,those two cousins who gave some of the best murder mysteries of the twentieth century.Theirs is the metaphysical detective story (Borges admired Ellery Queen),theirs is the unexpected final clue ,theirs is the "nursery chryme" dear to Agatha Christie .Some of their novels are on a level with "And then there were none" .
All Ellery Queen novels feature Ellery Queen himself as the detective .Here he is replaced by Michel Piccoli's character ,Paul Régis,which is not a big problem.
But the problem lies in the fact that most of the viewers did not recognize "their "Claude Chabrol.If they knew his numerous works ,they'd realize that only a dozen (roughly ,the 1959-1961 ,the 1967-73 golden era and some scattered later films (l'enfer,la ceremonie) are really Chabrolesque ,that is to say detective plot-with- bourgeois background-and ominous atmosphere.There are plenty of bizarre oeuvres in such a huge filmography (a lot of movies should never have been made;Clouzot,who easily artistically surpasses him only made 11 movies,only one of which is mediocre).
Actually " decade " took the eerie elements of "la rupture"(1970) and tightened them up.But whereas "La rupture" had a chabrolesque atmosphere and the usual suspects (Stephane Audran,Michel Bouquet),"Decade" features actors Chabrol had not used before (and to my knowledge never would).Coming after "juste avant la Nuit" ,"decade" could only be slagged off when it was released.Today,I must confess that it's not that much bad and compared with recent fiascos such as "la Fleur du Mal" or "au Coeur du Mensonge " or "rien ne va plus" or.... (the list is endless)it retains some originality.I can easily comprehend that people who do not know E.Queen 's world could be infuriated by this Punch and Judy style,but Chabrol faithfully transferred the writer's atmosphere to the screen :the gigantic metaphysical metaphor,a nervous Anthony Perkins -a good choice- ,a enough is enough Orson Welles-who else?- ,God himself.Do not get me wrong:"decade " is no masterpiece but it is a curious offbeat work ,sometimes clumsy (Chabrol felt compelled to "explain" the last scenes for fear his audience may not have understood),sometimes brilliant (the little girl in the train reciting the ten commandments ).
"Decade" verges on fantastic and predates another non-Chabrolesque intriguing flick "Alice ou la dernière fugue" .I have a warm spot in my heart for these two despised films .
"Decade" : a failed success or a successful failure ?And if you hate it (such is the case with many users) it's better than to be unconcerned about it.
