Les cousins

Chabrol before he truly became Chabrol. This might seem to be one of his more 'realistic' films, with its obligatory nouvelle vague scene of Parisian freewheeling, but one of 'Les Cousins'' main themes is the disparity between reality and fantasy, and the fate of those who cannot tell between them. Just as paul turns his personality into a series of roles, his life into ritualistic tableaux, so Chabrol suffuses his realistic narrative with references to myth, fable, fairy tale, opera, and, especially, film.

'Les Cousins' plays like a counterpart to Melville's 'Les Enfants Terribles', with the same theatricality, claustrophobia, incestuousness, and mythological base; the same cinematographer, even one of Melville's actors! most interesting is the development of Chabrol's style, the lockjaw camerawork, the complex use of point of view, the puncturing of solemnity with incongruous humour (see especially the hilarious 'fish' scene).

Although it's Chabrol's second effort (the first one being "le beau serge" featuring the same actors),this one is closer to Chabrol-as -we -know-him.The detective ending and the first steps in the bourgeois world of Brialy character herald Chabrol 's heyday (which begins with "les biches" ,encompasses such works as "la femme infidèle","que la bête meure" "le boucher" "la rupture" "juste avant la nuit " and ends with" les noces rouges";that's not to say all the movies were great during that period :"doctor Popaul" and "la decade prodigieuse" can be forgotten";that does not mean there were no great works after "wedding in blood" (les noces)either as testify such memorable works as "Violette NOzières","Une affaire de femmes" or "l'enfer".But in France the 1967-1973 era is generally regarded as Chabrol's peak ,with "le boucher" ,his towering achievement. So we enter the bourgeois world with Brialy's character,a bon vivant as we say in France,with parents (whom we never see)who provide him money and a comfortable flat .He is a student,but we never see him studying,girls and pleasures taking the best of him. In direct contrast with him,enters Blain,his provincial cousin.He comes from a much more modest background,his parents (whom we never see either)had certainly to struggle hard to send him to the Latin Quarter. So from the beginning ,the incommunicability is total.Blain is a grind,and if sometimes he accepts to follow his life-lover cousin in not-so-intellectual places in Paris,he knows he shall not disappoint his old parents.Brialy's kind of life is bewildering for a young lad like Blain:a scene is particularly strange,baroque,and even threatening: some fascination for Nazism from Brialy and his clique during a strange party(it's 1959,and German occupation is not that much far behind after all). Chabrol has ready begun his bourgeoisie wholesale massacre:Brialy is the prototype of the bourgeois student,selfish and smug,self-confident and apolitical (And however,1959,it's Algerian war!Young French are sent to do the dirty job).Apolitical,such is also Blain's case,but with more excuses :after all,when you're poor .. In his autobiography "le ruisseau des singes" ,Brialy told that Chabrol(and the producer) had planned an happy end with the two cousins running across the fields,reconciled.Both endings were filmed,and finally the two actors urged Chabrol to renounce this silly conclusion. Hence an almost Hitchcockian ending,Hitchcock whose influence will grow over the years in Chabrol's work.

The naive mama's boy Charles (Gérard Blain) moves to Paris to live with his debauched bon-vivant cousin Paul Thomas (Jean-Claude Brialy) in his apartment. He meets Paul's friend, the pervert pimp Jean "Clovis", who is older than them. Paul studies hard and writes daily to his mother while Paul gives frequent parties and neither studies nor goes to lectures. When Charles meets Paul's friend, the gorgeous and promiscuous Florence (Juliette Mayniel), he falls in love with her. They talk later through telephone and Florence understands the invitation of Charlie to meet her wrongly and arrives earlier at his apartment. She meets the cynical Paul and Clovis that tell her that she is a slut and will cheat Charlie when she becomes bored with him, and she ends having sex with Paul. Florence moves to the apartment to live with Paul, disturbing the attention of Charlie in his studies. When the final exams come, there is a tragedy.

"Les cousins" (1959) is the second film directed by Claude Chabrol, with the story of two cousins and depicting an empty generation. One cousin is from the countryside, naive, shy and mama's boy; the other is popular and pervert, although protecting his cousin most of the time. The beautiful Juliette Mayniel performs a key element in the story, since Charles has a crush on her, but Paul destroys their relationship since the twenty-year-old woman is promiscuous and has slept with most of his friends. However, the concentration of Charles is lost, and he fails his exam. The tragic conclusion is very sad. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Primos" ("The Cousins")

Chabrol's second film, made months after his first Le Beau Serge, and a more mature film director is evident. Helped, no doubt by those he gathered around him notably on script and camera, while the first film had charm and passion, this has that and more. Not only is this an interesting and intriguing tale of student life and affairs late 50s, the way it is shot opens up a whole new world of cinema. At least for the next five years this new Wave would dominate French cinema and also influence most of the world's cinema. With a fluid camera movement, jump cuts and an emphasis on 'real' people, having fun, being serious about politics, smoking all the time and having sex, cinema would, as they say never be the same again. Les Cousins is all of the above and entertains and amuses. Chabrol has complete control of the music this time, which works very well - even if it includes youngsters dancing around to Wagner! Important and enjoyable - can't say fair than that.

This is more akin to the recognizable style of the "Nouvelle Vague" (with one of the characteristics being an unduly harsh quality to the cinematography, typically a prerogative of the film noir genre) than Chabrol's previous (and first) film, HANDSOME SERGE (1958).

Interestingly, while it features the same two leads – Gerard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy – their roles are practically reversed (with the former now ingenuous and the latter world-weary), and set this time around in Paris rather than the provinces. Incidentally, the film forms a trilogy of sorts with Chabrol's other tales of amoral youth, all stemming from the vitriolic pen of the ill-fated Paul Gegauff i.e. LES BONNES FEMMES (1960) and WISE GUYS (1961).

Unfortunately, I did not watch this in the most congenial atmosphere – being a recording off French TV with subtitles in that language (it is odd that such an essential piece in both the director's canon and the influential "New Wave" filmography seems to be otherwise unavailable!). Anyway, having sensed a nod to Fellini in Chabrol's THE CHAMPAGNE MURDERS (1967), I can see definite links with this earlier effort (especially Brialy interrupting a wild party at his flat with a candle-lit recital of an epic German poem) – and which actually predates a similar occurrence in LA DOLCE VITA (1960) itself!

The film is also notable for being Stephane Audran's first collaboration (out of a total of 23!) with Chabrol; though her role is secondary, and a sluttish one at that, the actress – with hair dyed blonde – manages to make an impression nevertheless (she obviously did on her director, since they would eventually be married until 1980). Actually, the leading lady here is doe-eyed Juliette Mayniel (soon to play an unwilling donor in Georges Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE [1960] – ironically, one of several distinguished native directors dismissed as archaic by Godard et al), not an actress usually attached to the "New Wave" movement but who acquits herself exceedingly well under the circumstances.

Other characters within the narrative include yet another ambiguous and, in this case, much older live-in figure (who also acts as a bad influence on the heroine) and a librarian harboring almost paternal feelings for Blain. The film's abrupt tragic ending, casually treated by the director and deemed pointless by some, would seem to be suggesting that the bustle of city life spells the death of innocence (especially for someone not attuned to its grinding pace).

P.S. With this, I concluded my nearly two-month tribute to the octogenarian French master that included 27 films (all of them being first viewings!) and I regret not having had more time to revisit some of his other work – particularly A' DOUBLE TOUR (1959), LES BONNES FEMMES, TEN DAYS WONDER (1971) and INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS (1975)! For the record, I intend to pursue a similar retrospective for Jean-Luc Godard, who will himself turn 80 next December