This Man Must Die

This is one of the best Chabrol films I have seen. It's interesting to note that it's based upon a novel by Nicolas Blake, pen name of C. Day Lewis, at one time Poet Laureate of England and father of Daniel Day Lewis. From the movie, it seems Blake/Lewis was writing very much in the spirit of the great, and very cinematic, mistress of psychological crime writing, Patricia Highsmith. Though she never wrote anything exactly like this, the similarity is in the first-person narrative of a potential murderer, and in the way the story approaches an utterly evil person in an everyday upper-bourgeois setting; even the account of a man having an 'affair' with a woman he isn't necessarily attracted to is typically Highsmith; and there's attempted murder on a sailboat, and a man is almost bludgeoned on the head with a rock – Highsmith devices. The journal of the man contemplating murder, which is then found out, is something Highsmith might have liked.

Though as some have noted the narrator finds his way to the hit and run killer of his son a little too easily, the movie by allowing that is able to take us headlong into an astonishing, almost shocking situation. To get so close to evil -- this man who everybody hates, who would kill and cover it up and make his sister collaborate, who is abusive to everybody and everything, yet lives in bourgeois splendor, is so unusual it takes a while to realize how hair-raising it is.

Events move quickly after that. This is more understated than most of Chabrol and the greatest violence consists of a few slaps on the face of a lover or a boy, and words of abuse hurled by a boorish man and his nasty mother, but those moments are all the more disturbing for coming in such a buttoned-up world, and the action is very fast and economical compared to some of Chabrol's films. The scenes between the narrator and the boy Philippe where the boy says he wants his father dead and wishes Mark/Charles were his father, are very touching. The references to the rich variety of death descriptions in the Iliad are particularly resonant, as is the one at the end to Brahms quoting Hebrew scriptures, with the Brahms song sung by the great Kathleen Ferrier. The style may be neutral but the film is elegant and its look has not dated. The repugnant family scenes and the nightmarish dinners are typically Chabrol. The simplicity of the style is the more impressive seen in terms of possible followers like Ozon. They don't make them like this any more; they can't.

Michel Duchaussoy makes a good contrast to Yanne because he is so bland. He's an intentionally neutral figure whose moral status is meant to be ambiguous. Is he a hero out of Greek tragedy or is he just an escaping villain? Has he brought about justice -- has he even done it, since the son claims responsibility -- or has he merely been sucked into a whirlpool of evil? In the detective's office he finally begins to look for the first time like a sensitive writer. Before that he looked like a bland actor, but his opacity is just what Chabrol wants. Maybe he's one of Chabrol's most appealing heroes, but in the end what are we admiring?

After a speeding car kills his young son, Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy) vows there and then that he will kill the man responsible. The police begin a frantic hunt for the killer, but Charles has little confidence in them and starts an investigation of his own. In a chance encounter, he discovers that the brother-in-law of actress Helen Lanson (Caroline Cellier) is the man he is looking for, and sets about seducing Helen under a false name. He eventually gets to meet Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne, who also stars in Godard's Weekend - one of my all-time favourite films), who is such a repulsive human being that even his own son also wants him dead. As Charles' struggles with the idea of killing him, he must deal with the fact that he may be falling in love with Helen.

The revenge film is a sub-genre that has been done to death. Lazy film- makers and the generally uninspired can see it as a relatively simplistic premise that can be tampered with and altered to an endless degree. They range from the genuinely brilliant (Memento, Oldboy, The Virgin Spring) to the genuinely horrific (Taken, Death Wish), and the exploitation genre made very grisly use of it (The Last House On The Left, Thriller - A Cruel Picture). The fact is that it's starting to get a bit boring. Which makes it all the more refreshing when you stumble upon a gem from the past that takes the idea and spins out something fresh. Que La Bete Meure (The Beast Must Die, or This Man Must Die to give it its US title) is one of these.

Claude Chabrol's existential drama plays out like a Greek tragedy. We are with Charles all the time and we are made to suffer like our protagonist, and suffer he does. When he finally meets Paul, he realises that he is the monster he hoped him to be, which fuels his determination. Paul is grotesque - his voice spews out loutish insults before we even see him, and then we join him at dinner where he sadistically humilities his own kin. But does this mean that he truly deserves to die? As Charles sets in motion his plan of murder, he becomes noticeably uncomfortable yet fiercely determined.

Chabrol's film-making style comes across as mixing the tension-building thrills of Alfred Hitchcock, with the philosophical ponderings of Ingmar Bergman, and the result is often astonishing. Charles almost mirrors the doomed film noir detective, with Duchaussoy putting in a fantastic performance. From this to La Femme Infidele, the other Chabrol film I've had the fortune to see, it seems that he is relatively uncelebrated compared to his French associates Godard, Truffaut, Renoir and Cocteau (amongst many others) which, on the basis of this film alone, is wholly unfair.

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This is a very fine psychologic thriller in some mellow tones. The story is simple : a boy gets killed by a mad car driver and his father wants to find the man to kill him. We know, from the start, that there can be two finale : the father kills the man, or he changes his mind. But Chabrol makes us think that it can have another finale... Or another? Or perhaps this one? Not at all! We never thought of the real finale. This is brillant, well written and directed movie. Very fine acting by Duchaussoy and Yanne.

A particularly difficult film to comment upon without giving away vital plot elements but it has to be one of the director's finest. It has the suspense he can work so well, it has the the French bourgeoisie at their worst, it has gentle eroticism and sudden brutality.

We also have here superb story telling combined with high emotional content and a continuous switchback ride of twist and turns, even though we, seemingly,have the whole plot of the film placed openly before us within minutes of the opening credits.

Meticulously directed, there is not a superfluous scene, nor even a superfluous gesture. It is pure riveting cinema from start to finish

Great performances, great camera-work, great Chabrol.

If there is a Gallic director who likes to surprise his admirers with new tricks,unexpected methods and iconoclastic stance,it is new wave master Claude Chabrol.There have been many bright moments in his illustrious career when he has made films for them which could only be appreciated by a sharp brain and attentive eyes.Que la bête meure is a hard to classify film which is neither a thriller nor a run of the mill revenge drama.It is a film which plays with all leading conventions of these two genres.This man must die starts well with the depiction of a reckless accident.It is quite possible that this might induce inattentive viewers to regard it as a revenge drama.This is not the case as viewers are quickly caught in a maze of crucial dramatic scenes that have direct bearing on film's progress.Caroline Cellier and Michel Duchaussoy perform well as lovers whose relationship has a lot of bearing on this film's progress.Chabrol is known for avoiding a not so happy end for his film.This is the reason why "This man must die" will prepare you to imagine your own type of end in order to do injustice to the concept of happy end of this film.