Masques

In Paris, the host of a TV show for elderly people, Christian Legagneur (Philippe Noiret), is famous for being a generous man. He hires the journalist Roland Wolf (Robin Renucci) to write his biography and invites him to spend three days with him at his countryside house. Legagneur travels with Wolf by car with his mute driver Max (Pierre-François Dumeniaud). While having lunch in the house, Wolf is introduced to Legagneur's masseuse Patricia (Bernadette Lafont); to the wine expert Manu (Roger Dumas); and to the housekeeper Colette (Monique Chaumette). Then his young granddaughter, Catherine (Anne Brochet), who is ill, arrives wearing sunglasses. Wolf seems to be interested in a woman, Madeleine Chevalier, fishing with the residents. Soon Wolf snoops around and finds dark secrets about Legagneur. Further, he falls in love with Catherine and advises her that she is in danger.

"Masques", a.k.a. "Masks" (1987), is a great thriller by Claude Chabrol with an original story of a brother looking for the whereabouts of his missing sister. Philippe Noiret steals the show in the role of a scum that likes money and poses as a charitable man. The delicate Anne Brochet is perfect in her debut in the role of a vulnerable and needy young woman. The other names on the cast have also magnificent performances. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Máscaras" ("Masks")

Masks is a gothic mystery of antique origin, successfully updated for a world a century later. To breathe new life into a well-worn story takes style, inventiveness, and brio - all of which Chabrol, co-writer Odile Barski, and a well-chosen cast bring in spades. The traditional shadows and spandrels of the genre are discarded in favour of a uniquely saccharine creepiness.

Philippe Noiret fits his role as smarmy TV show host Christian Legagneur (literally "the winner") like a glove. His program - in which elderly romantics compete in dancing and singing - feels eerily plausible. We spend most of the film at his country estate, populated with familiars, where he has invited a young biographer to hear his story. This biographer, however, has a secret mission that only reveals itself gradually. The setup sounds implausible, but Legagneur is just egotistical enough to be seduced by the flattery of a biographer's attention, and just manipulative enough to welcome an extra puppet into his theatre, even if he suspects the ruse.

Robin Renucci, as the fake writer Roland Wolf, brings youthful brashness and self-assurance to the role, making him a worthy opponent in this quiet battle of wits. Other notables include Bernadette Lafont, gleefully hamming it up as the voluptuous tarotist-in-residence Patricia, and Anne Brochet as Catherine, Legagneur's ailing god-daughter.

It's tempting to think of Chabrol as a New Wave pioneer who drifted into less promising genre territory. But dig deeper, and you find a filmmaker with a remarkably acute grasp of the upper middle classes - particularly the collusive, self-perpetuating nature of class power. Legagneur is no rogue individualist. He gregariously surrounds himself with like-minded confederates who share in the spoils. To put it more simply: the rich don't rock the boat - they eat veal cutlets on the boat and sip fine wine.

Legagneur laughs easily, with his inner circle and at society. He is a law unto himself, creating a hermetically sealed, ideologically baroque world of his own. This is captured in a memorable image: he sleeps beneath an Arcadian tableau, recessed into ornate panelling - the physical manifestation of his dreams. We glimpse the structure he inhabits whether awake or asleep: a world entirely of his own invention and control. He is a dreamer wide awake. Or, to put it plainly: a powerful fantasist. Years before the world came to understand the true nature of TV host Jimmy Savile, Chabrol had already drawn the silhouette.

The 1980s were a relatively fallow period for Chabrol, but Masks - this opiated flower from an unmapped canyon of dreams - stands out.

precise option for cast. not original policier. but the unique art of characters definition. and a nice story. the vulnerability of Anne Brochet, new version of Audrey Hepburn, the charm of Philippe Niret, the flavor of mysteries old tales are pieces of a very interesting mechanism. nothing surprising, nothing complicated, only visual crime novel created in the limits of classic rules. image of each character - little jewel in Chabrol style, delicate intrigue and the precious details are elements of fine clock. and inspired ingredient for atmosphere. an old fashion movie and little more. maybe, a delight or just provocation for public.that is all.

Intriguing, somewhat old-fashioned thriller where no one is quite who he seems to be (though the revelations in themselves are hardly astounding); for what it is worth, I had to make do here with a TV-sourced version sporting French subtitles! In any case, the film virtually hinges on Philippe Noiret's excellent central performance as a larger-than-life TV presenter with a weakness for luxury. Evoking Walter Matthau to a striking degree, he manages all of the protagonist's various facets (transmitting in this way his talent for manipulation) – going from the charm he exercises on audiences and collaborators alike, to the tenderness he demonstrates towards his young female charge (whom he ostensibly took on out of compassion after both her parents perished in a car crash), the ruthlessness he eventually adopts in order to achieve his goals, and ultimately the breakdown he suffers 'on air' exposing him for the contemptuous bully he really is.

The plot sees a young reporter apparently approach Noiret for the purposes of writing his biography (he is actually investigating the disappearance of a woman who had been the old man's guest). At the latter's country-house, he meets and is attracted to the girl (leading a sheltered life due to her 'delicate' health), who even reciprocates his feelings – to Noiret's obvious chagrin (incidentally, Chabrol resists making him a lecher since he is only after the heroine's money). Bland Robin Renucci is only adequate as the amateur detective, but Anne Brochet's classical beauty (looking quite a bit like Emmanuelle Beart!) is ideally suited for the rather melancholy girl he determines to save from the evil clutches of her guardian. Also involved is Bernadette Lafont (middle-aged but still looking good and with hair dyed blonde) as a hanger-on at Noiret's estate who professes to tell fortunes.

MASQUES basically resolves itself in a battle-of-wills between Noiret and Renucci (and eventually the former and Brochet, when it finally dawns on her that what the young man – and the lady who went missing – had been telling her all along was true). In its expose' of bourgeois double standards and numerous scenes of carefully-built suspense, then, the film emerges to be extremely typical of its director (as well as being reasonably representative of his vast body of work).

At a time when skeletons were being found in the cupboards of a number of well-known celebrities in France, Chabrol created this film which asks the simple question: what lies beneath the mask of an apparently pleasant and sugar-sweet public figure? Can such a person be utterly wicked, capable of fraud, deceit - even murder - and get away with all that unnoticed? How far can the public image and the private reality differ?

For the subject of his analysis, Chabrol could hardly have chosen a better actor than Philippe Noiret. In his role, Noiret is so successful that it is virtually impossible to believe that his character could harm a fly - until the truly disturbing scene when his daughter shows him a bird in a cage, triggering a phobic reaction that causes the mask to slip - albeit for just a moment. After that, the mask stays firmly in place, until the last possible moment. But when the mask does fall, as it has to, and Legagneur turns on his television viewers, we see the truth in an instant and ask ourselves: how could we have been so blind? More disturbingly, we begin to question - as Chabrol intended we should - whether any real-life TV presenters have similar dark secrets.

Whilst not quite in the league of some of Chabrol's other thrillers (most notably the superb La Cérémonie), Masques is a film which does have some gripping moments and some sparkling dialogue. The ending is as funny as it is tragic, and, as a thought-provoker, it achieves its objective a little too successfully. I for one will never be able to watch a silver-tongued TV presenter again without thinking: what lies behind this mask?