Les biches

With "les biches" ,Chabrol entered his second and most fruitful period:the first one encompassed such classics as "les cousins" and "à double tour" but his formula began to wear thin in the mid -sixties with failures like "l'oeil du malin" "Marie-Chantal contre le docteur Kah" and the abysmal "le scandale".

Stephane Audran ,his then-wife starred in all these movies (roughly 1968-1973)bar two ("la decade prodigieuse" and "docteur popaul") and their spellbinding mysterious atmosphere owes a lot to her.

"Les biches " has not worn that much well though:at the time ,lesbians were not so common in the movies ,and of course they always had a bad end -see also Mark Rydell's "the fox" or William Wyler's "the children's hour"for that matter-.What remains today is not much :only the scene showing Jacqueline Sassard's trying to become the woman she loves by taking her clothes ,her jewels ,her make-up and her voice is still impressive today;what remains falls into the trap of triteness:the man who comes between the two girls ,the chic bourgeois life in Saint-Tropez under the snow,the two would be comic reliefs -who are not funny at all-....

"Les biches" is a must for Chabrol 's fans because it inaugurates his golden era ,which would give such classics as "la femme infidèle" or "le boucher".But the others can easily do without it.

If you are looking for action, erotic or otherwise, this is not a film you will enjoy.

It is a simple pleasure of color and emotion.

The plot is simple: A rich woman (Stéphane Audran - Babette's Feast, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) takes a liking to a poor young girl (Jacqueline Sassard). A man (Jean-Louis Trintignant - Z, Red) enters the picture, and friction results. That's it.

But, don't let the simplicity fool you. There is an elegant dance among the characters as emotional games are played. It is the dance amid the beauty of St. Tropez that is the pleasure.

'Les Biches', whilst not my favourite Chabrol film ranks among his best. On one level it has sumptuous cinematography on a par with 'Le boucher', another excellent score, courtesy of Pierre Jansen and some very stylish direction. All Chabrol's actors play their parts beautifully although Audran undoubtedly has the best material.

But what marks this film out and what many cannot appear to perceive is that it is not a meditation on class or a portrait of a 'menage a trois'. It does touch on those subjects, as do many of Chabrol's films, but this film is essentially about identity and it's destruction or absorption by another. Stephanie Audran's character is, put simply a VAMPIRE. This is humorously and beautifully established early in the picture when she first meets Sassard's character 'Why' on a bridge in Paris amid a Gothic mist and with Audran looking drained and evidently needing a new victim. Many have commented on Jean-Louis Trintignant's acting, arguing that it is bland or inexpert, failing to realise that as part of the plot he had to be 'consumed' by Audran and had to appear ineffectual. Compare Audran's extraordinarily vital, near superhuman character in 'Les Biches' to her purposefully meek character in 'La Rupture' and one can begin to see what a subtle and intelligent actress she is.

On first viewing 'Les Biches' some years ago I was mystified and like other reviewers irritated by the two scroungers Robegue and Riais. After further viewing it appears they are purposefully antagonistic and their apparently parasitic relationship points to them being Audran's familiars.

The raison d'etre of the film are the final sequences in which 'Why' ultimately escapes the fate of Paul and destroys Frederique by becoming her. So 'Les Biches' is essentially a nuanced and very stylised commentary on identity and it's struggle to coexist within a relationship.

American films are usually about someone coming in to clean up the mess around them; A good many French films are about people dealing with the mess that's inside--and in Les Biches (not only "The Bad Girls" as uneasily translated, but "The Does," as in fauns) director Claude Chabrol returns to his obsession with the sexual power that one individual attempts to have over another, and like Hitchcock, with identities that fluctuate as the situation changes.

Les Biches is a subtle and subversive look at two women, one rich and powerful and beautiful, and a younger street artist who draws "does" on the sidewalks of Paris, picked up by the elder to vacation with her in St. Tropez during the winter--Jean-Louis Trignitant enters as the token love interest, and quietly nasty love games ensue: Chabrol's early films do not seem to date the way most films of the 1960's do, and the only problem with this one is that is should be available in widescreen as some of his quietly elegant compositions have been hacked at the edges by some corporate type that should have known better.

The first time I saw this movie I liked it. The second time I thought Ho hum, the third time (OK I am practicing my French and I remembered this as a movie with a pretty clear sound track) I loved it.

It starts slow, a bit weird, but the intensity between the women works as the scene plays out and really starts to cook when they get to St. Tropez, but Frédérique is just too spoiled to know a good thing when she sees it and blows it.

Chabrol shows us just how stupid we can be when we don't know what we are doing, or just how much in love we are and how much stupider we get when jealousy sets in.

Stéphane Audran is just so cold and yet so vulnerable.

This one may get a fourth viewing yet, putting it in league with Chabrol's Le Boucher (One of THE BEST ever) and Casablanca.