Poulet au vinaigre

'Cop au vin' (an inspired translation of the original title 'Poulet au vinaigre') is one of those films by Claude Chabrol which, when viewed, I have the impression that they were made with Alfred Hitchcock looking approvingly over the French director's shoulder during its production. The story takes place in a small French town where the banality of houses and the apparent dullness of the people create an atmosphere of threatening normalcy which itself is a prelude to the dangerous events and situations that can not be too late to show up. The characters are diverse, some nice and some evil, but all interesting and, in addition, with a degree of madness that arouses and amplifies the interest of the viewers. The cinematography pplaces the characters in context very well, revealing what is needed to arouse curiosity and hiding what we should not find out, as spectators, too quickly. Music creates or amplifies suspense. But in addition toHitchcock-like films, we can also enjoy a dose of French specificity in 'Cop au vin'. A 'special sauce' to use a culinary term in harmony with the titles.

The two-story house where Madame Cuno, a wheelchair-bound widow lives together with her son, the very young Louis, the postman who delivers the correspondence at a time when this is still being carried in envelopes that could be opened, could be a motel at the crossroads as in Psycho. It becomes the setting for part of the story and the object that triggers the plot, as it is coveted by some of the important people of the place. The story is quite complex, husbands and mistresses appear and disappear, more or less accidental car collisions happen, police investigations are conducted with very unconventional methods. In the end, however, it is not the police intrigue that gives the film its charm. I confess that I didn't fully understand it, maybe I did not pay enough attention or maybe it was too complicated. My interest was drawn to the gallery of characters full of charm and color and to the excellent cinematography (by Jean Rabier). Performers include Stéphane Audran (Chabrol's ex, the film is made after they divorced) and Michel Bouquet, who were among the director's favorite actors, as well as Lucas Belvaux, who played the role of Louis, an interesting actor whom I did not see lately. Jean Poiret plays the role of Inspector Lavardin, a role that would turn the film into a tentative head of a series that will be continued in the coming years. 'Cop au vin' is a film with many qualities, which remains to this day an entertainment that should not be avoided.

After another undue interruption in my ongoing Chabrol tribute – incidentally, I messed up the date and he will only turn 80 on the 24th of June rather than last May! – I plan to tackle it in earnest now, a task which will occupy me till the end of the month (to go along with a parallel Dennis Hopper tribute).

Anyway, this proved to be another stepping-stone in the French director's erratic but prolific filmography; by the end of the 1970s, his career had suffered a decline but it got back on track with this enjoyable award-winning thriller (incidentally, the hybrid retitling for U.S. consumption was an unusual touch), one that was successful enough to warrant a sequel – INSPECTOR LAVARDIN (1986; a viewing of which is to follow this one) – and a brief TV series made between 1988 and 1990 which seems to be unavailable for re-appraisal.

Still, for all the film's typical elements of detailed setting, nuanced characterization and ironic outlook, it does not quite scale the heights of Chabrol's finest work due to an essentially flimsy plot: indeed, even such later – and ostensibly lower-profile – efforts as the recently-viewed THE CRY OF THE OWL (1987) involve a denser and more gripping narrative! This is not to say that COP AU VIN lacks suspense or surprise: actually, the latter concerns most of all the iconoclastic Inspector himself – in spite of a dapper facade, he is blasé, forthright (even referring to a character's effeminacy as "AC/DC"!) and not above breaking into premises sans warrant or intimidating suspects to get at the truth – belatedly called in to investigate a murder, only to be met with a very similar one soon after and, later, the disappearance of a woman, all of whom are tied to a property development company whose methods are not the most ethical either.

Jean Poiret, ideally cast here and who would of course reprise the central role in the sequel(s), had garnered a reputation as a playwright and even secured an Oscar nomination for co-writing LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978); then in 1992, the same year he died of a heart attack (at 65), he stepped into the director's chair with LE ZEBRE (which won him a posthumous Cesar for Best First Film)! Incidentally, later on in the decade, he married one of his co-stars here i.e. Caroline Cellier (who, years before, had been the leading lady in arguably Chabrol's masterpiece THIS MAN MUST DIE [1969]); besides the latter, the film under review featured two of the director's frequent protagonists in supporting roles: ex-wife Stephane Audran (playing an invalid) and a very slim Michel Bouquet. Also on hand is amiably kooky Pauline Lafont (daughter of Bernadette, another "New Wave" regular and who would actually co-star in INSPECTOR LAVARDIN) – whose promising career was brought to a premature end when she perished in a fall, at just 25 years of age, in 1988!

Adapted by Dominique Roulet from his own novel it doesn't take long to realise that we are in Georges Simenon territory here. Sinister provincial undercurrents, skeletons in the closet and a collection of morally ambiguous, largely dysfunctional characters. It also enables director Claude Chabrol to take aim at his customary target of the beastly bourgoisie. Ingredient X comes in the shape of the truly extraordinary character that is Inspector Jean Lavardin.

He is a maverick who seems to appear from nowhere, is answerable to no one, assumes the role of judge and jury and has his own particular methods of extracting the truth! Jean Poiret is simply superb in the role.

The convoluted plot is almost as labyrinthine as that of 'The Big Sleep' but the performances carry us through. Great support here from M. Chabrol's former spouse Stéphane Audran as wheelchair-bound Madame Cuno and inveterate scene-stealer Michel Bouquet as a flakey lawyer. He had previously appeared in three of Chabrol's worst films and two of his best. Sultry Caroline Cellier, married at the time to Poiret, is the vamp. The nymphet is the enchanting Pauline Lafont who tragically met with a fatal accident at just 25.

Chabrol again utilises his favoured cinematographer Jean Rabier and the suitably menacing score is supplied by his son Matthieu.

Striking while the iron was hot, Chabrol and the excellent Poiret followed up the following year with 'Inspector Lavardin' after which the character was consigned to the small screen. Unsurprisingly Dominique Roulet went on to write a Maigret television series in the late 90's. It is indeed a cruel irony that the follow-up featured Bernardette Lafont, mother of the ill-fated Pauline.

Critics at the time welcomed this film as Chabrol's return to form and although nothing that he did thereafter could really compare with the ones he gave us during his Golden Period from 1968 to 1973, he still produced a few interesting, unsettling and slickly professional pieces, notably those starring super Huppert. Strangely, an actor whose persona seemed ideally suited to Chabrol's oeuvre, Gérard Depardieu, worked with him just once on 'Inspector Bellamy'. Not only Chabrol's swansong but a film which has more than a passing nod to Simenon.

I've seen a handful of Chabrol films and have so far been impressed with all of them. This film is my first experience of Chabrol's work in the eighties and while I'm not surprised at the fact that it gets lambasted by some; and it's not quite up to the great French director's previous high standards, personally I found this to be yet another great example of Chabrol's moody and brooding direction coupled with an interesting plot line and some good performances. The plot is not quite as deep as the ones seen in previous Chabrol films, but there's still plenty to chew on. The base of the story is Madame Curo and her son Louis. They live in a house that is wanted by two unscrupulous people in the village, but what they don't realise is that the son can read their mail, owing to the fact that he works at the post office - which gives them an advantage. The plot kicks off properly when Louis puts sugar into the tank of one of the men's cars, which soon results in a fatal car accident. After the disappearance of the other man's wife, a hard nosed police officer is brought in to investigate.

This film has one of the strangest titles I've ever heard of - 'Poulet au vinaigre', translating literally as "Chicken with the Vinegar". Quite what that means, I have no idea. The film has a fair few different plots going on, but the one that Chabrol seems most interested in is the one surrounding Louis, who finds himself in the middle of a "war" that is a bit too big for him and has to deal with his needy, sick mother at the same time. The murder investigation does provide the film with one of its main narratives; but since it doesn't kick off until we're halfway through, it's clear that it wasn't Chabrol's main concern. The acting is very good all round, with Lucas Belvaux making a convincing lead and getting good support from Chabrol's ex-wife and regular muse Stéphane Audran, Jean Poiret; who is excellent as the formidable police officer and my personal favourite, the exquisite Pauline Lafont as the love interest. Chabrol seems to have a thing for ending his films abruptly, and that is the case here as while everything is wrapped up by the end, it is done in a matter of about five minutes. Overall, it's not hard to imagine why this film isn't as well liked as some of Chabrol's other work - but for my money it's still a more than worthwhile thriller and comes recommended.

It is true that Chabrol loosened his grip after 'Les Innocents Aux Mains Sales', possibly horrified by his own insights. This is probably a shame; but the light, comic mysteries and thrillers he has largely produced since are by no means negligible, always entertaining and full of Chabrolian irony and motifs. In this film, believe it or not, he seems to believe in the God of marriage. Normally that venerable institution is the site in Chabrol of repression, a (usually literal) stifling of humanity, a closed, rigid world not too far from hell. With the relaxing of his style comes a relaxing of his world view.

As ever with Chabrol, a young man is being emotionally strangled by his mother's dependence, her emotional paralysis somewhat unsubtly figured in her being crippled. Although the title punningly refers to the detective, and the film is nominally a mystery story, Chabrol seems more interested in his rites-of-passage narrative - the detective doesn't make his first appearance for forty minutes, and doesn't dominate the movie until the last third.

It would be wrong to claim that this is Chabrol in 'realistic' mode, but he certainly gets a sense of a rural town community, its unexpected connections, the malicious schemes of its most respectable citizens; pure soap opera, maybe, but the idea of a society turning in on itself, almost incestuously, is convincing. Louis Cuno is the unexpected centre of the town's secrets, a sullen, gangly, lovestruck teenager, but as postman he connects as no-one else can, betraying his civic trust as he takes home to his mother incriminating letters to peruse, as a defence against plans to demolish their property, destroy their home.

Chabrol usually deals with the threat to the home from within; the extending of focus here, leads to a more relaxed film. Because the film focuses of Louis, whose not always legal actions are treated indulgently by director and detective alike, the other characters are more shadowy, more like caricatures, minimising the mystery, making its potentially horrifying conclusions somewhat perfunctory. Chabrol doesn't let his hero off too easily, as we suspect Louis is exchanging one mother for another; his initiation into the delights of sex is in the grounds of a country house, a typically Chabrolian green space blighted by the surveilling eyes of the detective.

Spying is one of the main themes of the film, from the camera taking pictures at the beginning, to Louis' nocturnal amateur detective work. In such a community, private and public space are not so clearly marked, and one's identity is as much defined by one's public role (doctor, butcher etc.) as by any personal merit, so there is something creepy as well as comic about this police (the Law) spying on the sexual act.

There is something creepy about this policeman, anyway. Unlike the rooted, defined villagers, he is a rootless stranger, without motive, personality, role, except to solve the crime (he keeps insisting that he is the 'flic'), in order to do which he resorts to alarming thuggery, even more objectionable than Harry Callahan, whose heart at least was in the right place. Don't be fooled by Chabrol's autumnal cheerfulness - this is a vinaigre with a very bitter aftertaste.