La fleur du mal

This is a 100% French movie possibly not ever intended for American viewers. However, being the francophile that I am, I dug up "Flower of Evil" at my local library and proceeded to view it with much anticipation. Nathalie Baye is one of my favorite French actresses.

The story moves along a little slow but the mood of the film is enticing and it leads you to believe that something dark is lurking just beneath the surface.

That dark stuff emerges later on in various subplots while the entire plot does thicken up a bit with good tension. I felt a bit let down when it came time for a climax but I wouldn't dismiss this film because of that, I really enjoyed the superb acting, fine character development, and otherwise gripping story, a characteristic of many French dramas. Maybe some of the subtlety was just lost on me, but I liked the fact that you're never sure who's good or bad, but you end up feeling for each character.

"La Fleur du Mal" is a film for serious film watchers and/or students of acting or drama, and not for mindless entertainment.

Classical Greek students after a modern take on The House of Atreus need look no further than Chabrol's latest. As ever there is elegance and style to spare and it's really great to know that actresses as old as Suzanne Flon (who scored again this year in Effroyables Jardins) can still not only get meaty roles but also deliver. Unlike other commenters the charm, sex appeal and, most of all, acting ability of Benoit Magimal is lost on me but I would walk a mile for a Nathalie Baye performance and she does not disappoint here. I note that other comments touch on the Frenchness on display but if you choose to see a French film why expect Sauerkraut and halva. Not Chabrol's finest but still out of the right bottle.

I saw "La fleur du mal" at the San Sebastian Film Festival last september. Certainly, this last Chabrol film isn't a great movie, though it's not an awful movie either. One has the feeling while watching it (and after having it watched)that it is all filmed with too much distance, too cold, no emotions whatsoever. Chabrol's study of a french, provincial, upper-bourgeousie family, that is rotten to its roots (they are all a bunch of hypocrites), lacks of passion, interest (you have seen this story many times on film) and, in my opinion, of humor and sarcasm. But I insist, its not a terrible movie(with ticket prices so high nowadays, at least here in spain, sometimes you just have to get mad while watching some movies lately); its just too long, too conventional and too plain.

Director Chabrol takes on the French bourgeois so insidiously, so quietly, so subtly, that you don't realize his cinematic scalpel has just removed several layers of sensitive skin; this family-based thriller shows a woman running for office, examines her philandering husband, and zeroes in on two slightly incestuous slightly related children, all under the care of a quietly smiling, deadly caretaker, who smiles while encouraging the tots to misbehave.

The plot, such as it is, could be frustrating if the viewer is looking for any kind of forward action--this is an expose of empty morality, and hardly qualifies as a suspense film (you might even ask--when will this end?), but in considering the gorgeously cinematic interiors (and beach setting) in contrast to the vapid emptiness each character ultimately reveals, this could be a film you like very much; it's typically French in that it tends to look inside rather than outside, examine character development in lieu of action perpetrated by a hero.

"Flower of Evil" tells of a French Bordeaux bourgeoisie family of three generations with a family tree like a Los Angeles freeway map and a history of evil doings which doesn't really have anything to do with anything. As this film rolls along with the la-de-da day-to-day business of the mother running for local civic office while the step-sibs falling in love and granny putters around the garden, one can only wonder what the hell, if anything, is being developed in this apparent nonstory. When the end credits roll unexpectedly one can only wonder what Chabrol had in mind and why it was never really brought into clarity of fruition at the end. A kind of moderately interesting floparoo, this subtitled French flick has plenty of talent but no story. (C+)