Just Before Nightfall

Though coming from Chabrol's major phase (1967-1975), this was only recently released on DVD – and exclusively on R2 at that!; still, I had missed an incongruous Saturday morning broadcast of the film on Italian TV several years back. Ironically, even if it can lay a claim to being among the director's best-regarded efforts, I admit to having found such lesser-known Chabrol titles as DEATH RITE (1976) and ALICE OR THE LAST ESCAPADE (1977) – both of which immediately preceded this viewing – more readily satisfying…though the fact that JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL treads typically bourgeois i.e. inherently mundane territory, whereas the others were fanciful (thus essentially lightweight), may have had more to do with this than anything else!

Actually, my main quibble with the film is its overlength (due to the protagonist's wallowing in self-pity, this being basically an update of Dostoyevsky's literary classic "Crime And Punishment", during the last act); in a way, it is also a reversal of Chabrol's own LA FEMME INFIDELE (1969), with the very same stars (Michel Bouquet and Stephane Audran) no less. In the latter she is initially oblivious – and eventually forgiving – of his having learnt about her infidelity and murdered the other man, while here it is he who has a clandestine affair, kills the woman concerned and then confesses to both the wife and his best friend (husband of the deceased and played by Francois Perier), both of whom try to convince the guilt-stricken hero thereafter not to give himself up to the Police (she even taking extreme measures to this end)! Audran, still at the height of her statuesque beauty, is a particular delight and she went on to win a BAFTA award for it (shared for the actress' famously unruffled turn in that Luis Bunuel masterpiece THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE [1972]).

A subplot, then, depicts a comparable folly to the protagonist's – where the elderly and meek-looking cashier in Bouquet's firm embezzles funds to sustain his unlikely romance with a much younger woman (not that the perennially exhausted hero bore the looks of a Casanova himself but, at least, his sluttish mistress is clearly shown to be into sado-masochism). Ultimately, such ironic yet provocative (indeed quasi-surrealist) psychological nuances, are what make Chabrol's work so intriguing and quietly rewarding – more so, in fact, than perhaps any other of the "Nouvelle Vague" film-makers.

This is the most morally exquisite of Chabrol's many explorations of the human condition. Guilt, forgiveness, revenge coexist and mutually triumph. Many of us assume these three moral stances are mutually incompatible. Chabrol balances them against each other and then fuses them together. The actors reveal their inner dilemmas with gestures more than words. Deep intentions run across surface motives. And the final gesture of this compelling film casts all that went before into another, deeper level. Of course, no deed is as simple as it seems. But few appreciate as Chabrol does here that our all too common morally mixed motives can continue to coexist to the grave. No evil deed is ever straightforward, but neither are the best ones.

Had Chabrol filmed this in the style of Bergman, this film would be a Criterion Classic. But filmed as a thriller, it has sadly failed to gain the audience and admiration it so richly deserves. It is a philosophical triumph!

Possibly the best film Chabrol made, along with 'La femme Infidele' and 'Le boucher'. An intense psychological study and not really a thriller this was the first Chabrol film I ever watched. At first I was left confused and disappointed, however this powerful and moving film slowly revealed it's hidden beauty with each viewing.

This film more than any other of Chabrol's has entered my consciousness, Michael Bouquet's acting is very memorable and Stephanie Audran is astonishingly beautiful. There is no hint of mawkishness or sentimentality and one is left moved and glad of so poignant a masterpiece.

This is one of the few satisfying movies Chabrol made in his long career. Here he has a convincing story that does not require complicated plot zig-zags. It is a simple story of adultery leading to death and the cover-up that follows. The acting is almost all fine--Francois Perier as the widower who expresses little sorrow for his dead wife is especially convincing; he's really acting, not just shrugging his way through a scene. Michel Bouquet has to make his guilt-ridden character (could have been created by Dostoievsky) interesting and sympathetic and mostly he does.

Couldn't this be issued on DVD?

A man murders his best friend's wife. Guilt leads him to confess to the crime to both his friend and his wife. They in turn forgive him his act of homicide, betrayal and infidelity. This unconditional forgiveness and lack of reproach drives him to despair.

Despite the early scenes suggesting that this could be a thriller, as is the way with Claude Chabrol's other films, the narrative of Juste Avant la Nuit goes off in an entirely different direction. It uses it's opening crime not as a springboard to a suspenseful story but as a way of examining the human condition. The murder almost becomes irrelevant as we progress through the film and witness the central character become more and more depressed as a result of the love and understanding he is shown by the people who should ordinarily hate him for the ultimate betrayal he has shown them. Like other Chabrol films, this one depicts a melancholic and tragic villain. The audience are asked again to empathize with the criminal and try to understand his angst. It's morally complex and doesn't give out any answers at all. If you're looking for a traditional crime thriller this is not it. How much you enjoy this depends on how interesting you find it's central questions. I'm on the fence.