Dirty Hands

Chabrol just can't be bothered with mcguffins and creating suspense, that's where he differs from Alfred Hitchcock. Instead of a meticulous recreation of a social group (the rich), we are given careless expressionistic filmmaking using the repertory actors Attal and Zardi (here as buffoonish policemen) plus a name Hollywood actor (Steiger), an Italian pretty-boy (Giusti) and the greatest European actress of her time, Romy Schneider.

You know the plot's clumsy when two characters keep having to discuss it at length for the viewer's benefit. There's a murder scene using some sort of club that falls completely flat in dramatic terms. There are simply too many twists and turns for a simple adultery story to bear, so we are left to admire the gracefulness of Schneider's performance. She is a trophy wife who must start to make decisions on her own, in the absence of her husband and her lover; she must also learn to lie convincingly to suspicious detectives. The eroticism of the lovemaking on the livingroom carpet, taunting her frustrated husband is well evoked.

The interrogation before the judge is the one scene that really holds up dramatically. The impatient judge who finds the beautiful woman suspect very desirable, the eager lawyer who smells a way out for his client--fabulous acting by Jean Rochefort--and the woman herself who hardly says a word while the two men argue over her fate. The only such scene I can recall with this power is the one in Altman's The Player.

Claude Chabrol's Les Innocents aux Mains Sale sometimes runs the risk over becoming very, very slow-paced. Particularly the scene in the judge's office in which Julie's attorney cunningly pleads for her innocence is way, way too long. A little less dialogue, and a little more suspense would have helped this film, although it is really not bad.

But... The major attraction in this film is not the story, which, I must say, does have some highly unexpected twists and does indeed show Chabrol's creative skills and pleasure in directing. The star of Les Innocents is no one less than the wonderful Romy Schneider, whose acting performance, charm and beauty in this film are more stunning than ever before. I am very happy that Chabrol has chosen her character as the central one, for now we can admire gracious Scheider in almost every scene. I have the impression the camera man was in love with her, and who can blame him. Romy even looks amazing in the scene where she is putting curlers in her hair. She is the perfect cast for this complicated Femme Fatale role.

Although mainly the mediteranean filming locations in combination with the outstanding weather are to be credited for providing this Film Noir with a deceptively pleasant yellow, warm glow, it is Romy Scheider's radiance and talent that make Les Innocents aux Mains Sales a joy to watch.

Innocents with Dirty Hands is an unabashedly ludicrously contrived yet not exactly boring thriller, with an investigation that would have been cracked in ten minutes by Inspector Clouseau, albeit one featuring one of the sexiest (and most talented) French performers of the period in Romy Schneider (she gives the "real" by that I mean best performance in this, better than the material might deserve), luxurious San Tropez locations, plus there is some inventive camerawork and a couple of transitions that sparked my interest.

I actually got more on board with the story once it takes its major turn midway through, and it feels like Chabrol gets to have some pulpy enjoyment turning the screws on our expectations on a marriage and I can't stress enough if you got to have this kind of wackadoodle masculine (and feminine) headtrip, get Steiger and his insense ass. And it occurs to me this is one of the very few movies that you couldn't realistically make today, not because of cell phones but because of Viagra and Cialis. But, if that's what you gotta do to get it up, then...

I would like to give this wonderful film more than 7 points but it cannot measure up to the superb 'Helene' group of films Chabrol made during the period immediately prior to it.

Many reviews and books are rather scathing about 'Les Innocents aux mains salles', and this disregard, although understandable is largely unfounded. I must admit that the first time I watched it I found the dubbing disappointing and was a little disappointed by the rather casual approach of both director and actors. However by the third viewing a strange fascination and sense of immersion had developed, a state a lover of Chabrol's films will recognise. The deficiencies which the film has do little to detract from it's strange unearthly colour, the disturbing architecture and the 'otherness' evident in the most mundane acts and settings. Added to this it is a rather good thriller with plenty of plot twists and wrong turns.

This film, perhaps because it isn't one of Chabrol's best makes clear to me why he is such a talent. To clarify this I will point out that no other French director, new wave or otherwise interests me at all and I really think I only have a peripheral interest in film. This film is so un self conscious,playful and yet deeply sinister it makes a mockery of any serious analysis. Chabrol confounds those who attempt to analyse or compare him and this film is perhaps the best example of this, you can only enter the reality presented, experience and perhaps enjoy.