Les cousins

Charles is a young provincial coming up to Paris to study law. He shares his cousin Paul's flat. Paul is a kind of decadent boy, a disillusioned pleasure-seeker, always dragging along with other idles, while Charles is a plodding, naive and honest man. He fell in love with Florence, one of Paul's acquaintances. But how will Paul react to that attempt to build a real love relationship?

Of the so-called French New Wave directors, Claude Chabrol has been called possibly the most mainstream (though less celebrated than Truffaut or Godard). We could also say he has a remarkable amount of stamina. "Les Cousins" was at the beginning of his career, and for decades he kept making great movies, including the notable "Madame Bovary" in 1991... and still kept going.

I love this film's blend of decadence and death. A simple man, with studies on his mind, is exposed to some bizarre scenes of sensuality, violence, crime, and even Nazi elements (in 1950s France?). This is what it is like if you take two opposing elements and allow them to spin out of control.

The naive mama's boy Charles (Gérard Blain) moves to Paris to live with his debauched bon-vivant cousin Paul Thomas (Jean-Claude Brialy) in his apartment. He meets Paul's friend, the pervert pimp Jean "Clovis", who is older than them. Paul studies hard and writes daily to his mother while Paul gives frequent parties and neither studies nor goes to lectures. When Charles meets Paul's friend, the gorgeous and promiscuous Florence (Juliette Mayniel), he falls in love with her. They talk later through telephone and Florence understands the invitation of Charlie to meet her wrongly and arrives earlier at his apartment. She meets the cynical Paul and Clovis that tell her that she is a slut and will cheat Charlie when she becomes bored with him, and she ends having sex with Paul. Florence moves to the apartment to live with Paul, disturbing the attention of Charlie in his studies. When the final exams come, there is a tragedy.

"Les cousins" (1959) is the second film directed by Claude Chabrol, with the story of two cousins and depicting an empty generation. One cousin is from the countryside, naive, shy and mama's boy; the other is popular and pervert, although protecting his cousin most of the time. The beautiful Juliette Mayniel performs a key element in the story, since Charles has a crush on her, but Paul destroys their relationship since the twenty-year-old woman is promiscuous and has slept with most of his friends. However, the concentration of Charles is lost, and he fails his exam. The tragic conclusion is very sad. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Primos" ("The Cousins")

Chabrol's second feature. I haven't seen his first, Le beau Serge, but this is the most French New Wave film I've seen from Chabrol. As such, it's by far my favorite. I like several of his films, but I do find even my favorites a little dry. This one is just gorgeous and it's quite a lot of fun throughout. Gerard Blain plays a provincial who is moving to Paris to go to college. He moves in with his cousin (Jean-Claude Brialy), who is himself a student. Brialy is a total party animal, spending all his free time drinking with friends and none of it studying. The two get along at first, but then a woman (Juliette Mayniel) comes between them. The film is kind of a precursor to Jules et Jim.

Chabrol before he truly became Chabrol. This might seem to be one of his more 'realistic' films, with its obligatory nouvelle vague scene of Parisian freewheeling, but one of 'Les Cousins'' main themes is the disparity between reality and fantasy, and the fate of those who cannot tell between them. Just as paul turns his personality into a series of roles, his life into ritualistic tableaux, so Chabrol suffuses his realistic narrative with references to myth, fable, fairy tale, opera, and, especially, film.

'Les Cousins' plays like a counterpart to Melville's 'Les Enfants Terribles', with the same theatricality, claustrophobia, incestuousness, and mythological base; the same cinematographer, even one of Melville's actors! most interesting is the development of Chabrol's style, the lockjaw camerawork, the complex use of point of view, the puncturing of solemnity with incongruous humour (see especially the hilarious 'fish' scene).

This film by Claude Chabrol reminds me of the old story of the country mouse and the city mouse. The country mouse is excited to see the big city but his bumbling provincial ways are out of step with his more sophisticated city cousin. This seems to be pretty much the basis for this film, "Les Cousins"! Though of course, being a Chabrol film it will have some dark edges and twists!

Charles is the guy raised in the country. He's slow and lacks confidence with women. Paul, on the other hand, was raised in the city and women hang all over him and put out like crazy for him. When Charles comes to stay with him while he goes to college, he is quite the contrast to Paul who is a confident ladies' man. He's also more bookish and introspective than Paul. All Paul wants is to have a good time and have sex--and he couldn't care less about his studies at the college. And, in a way, Paul has contempt for his cousin when Charles falls head over heels for Florence--and he soon beds Florence and asks her to move in with him. As for Charles, he is sad but sinks his energy into his classwork and tries to do the right thing. What's next for this odd mismatched pair? Bet you won't be able to guess!

This film is considered by many to be one of the best and earliest New Wave films. Like many New Wave movies, the normal film formulas are turned on their head and goodness isn't necessarily rewarded and the ending is quite ambiguous. Well worth seeing and darkly enjoyable.