In 1985, Poulet au Vinaigre revived Claude Chabrol's career, introducing a maverick character who became a landmark in the director's copious filmography: inspector Jean Lavardin. Even if he wasn't really at the fore front of the plot (he appeared after about 45 minutes), his unconventional methods and his pure portrayal of a nonconformist cop were more than enough to ensure the critical and commercial success of the film. Thus, a sequel simply entitled Inspector Lavardin (1986) was released a year later and it brought back the same ingredients for another winning formula.
Moving to Dinan in Brittany after his stay in Forges-Les-Eaux in Normandy because of a blunder towards a notary which put a break to his career, Jean Lavardin arrives and stays in the bourgeois house belonging to his first love, Hélène (Bernadette Lafont) because her husband, Raoul Mons, a Christian writer was found dead on the beach. Who's the culprit? Where will Lavardin's investigation lead him?
In this sequel to Poulet au Vinaigre, Lavardin is the prime protagonist and for Chabrol, he's a delicious pretext to poke his noise in a vipers' nest and so to shatter what lies beneath the respectability of provincial upper middle class. These goals were always at the core of Chabrol's work and here they're supported by one of human's senses: eyesight in a funny though quietly disquieting note. For example, on the first evening when Lavardin has diner with the family, the seat of Raoul Mons is located at the back of the long, still shot, at the end of the table, meaning that he may be dead but his spirit can be felt in a way. On the other hand, Claude Alvarez (Jean Claude Brialy) makes and collects eyes which makes Lavardin say: "they're impressive, I feel like I'm being watched". That said, in one sequence, Lavardin watches through his binoculars, Véronique on the beach at night, joining a man who could very well be the key of the enigma. This sense of surveillance was already present in Poulet au Vinaigre when Lavardin acted, in a similar, peculiar way as a father figure for Louis. Ditto here for Veronique after the scene on the beach. And last but not least, see the two journalists who keep on harassing Lavardin.
Compared to Poulet au Vinaigre, Inspector Lavardin is much more concise, even straight-forward in his development even if Chabrol films his work with an unhurried pace. And not only has he fun by playing with the codes of the whodunit (Lavardin frequently nicknames his assistant, "Watson"!) but also with exposing the lies the characters go through. He is helped by a bevy of memorable secondary roles who are highly convincing in the part of ambiguity.
Furthermore, Lavardin acts like an ironic Candid and given he evolves in a sultry atmosphere throughout the revelation of quirky clues and dark secrets, his light presence peppered with witty cues has a refreshing aura which wraps the whole movie, greatly helped by Jean Poiret's unique acting.
At last Chabrol may have been a Parisian in his heart, he was always strong at recreating the atmosphere of provincial France and in Inspector Lavardin, Brittany is so well rendered that you can almost feel you're physically present in the small town of Dinan.
I'll rapidly skip over the obvious qualities of this flick such as tasty dialogs or revelatory camera angles to write this: it's fashionable to laud the films Chabrol made at the end of the sixties and the debut of the seventies like la Femme Infidèle (1969) or le Boucher (1970). It's true they were the filmmaker's heyday but I can easily recommend other movies Chabrol made afterwards and the two volumes of Lavardin's adventures would be easily included in my suggestions. And if they're an acquired taste for you, the mini-series les Dossiers de l'Inspecteur Lavardin shot for television at the end of the eighties are waiting to be discovered. They're all the more entertaining as they hinge on the elements that secured Lavardin's success: humor, spirituality and efficiency.
