O Grito da Coruja

Patricia Highsmith's "cry of the owl" was not her best or even among her best;we are far from triumphs such as "the talented Mister Ripley" "Ripley's game " or "strangers on a train".But it was an interesting psychological study,focusing on a man who thought that, whatever he might do ,he was bound to fall and he would even bring bad luck to his human pals.Like a lot of HIghsmith 's characters ,he was a neurotic,who could not fit in the "normal world" ,with a heavy guilt feeling and a touch of masochism.Chabrol's screenplay is very faithful to the novel,keeping even the last line,but it's a good example of how accuracy leads to failure.

The choice of Christophe Malavoy was excellent because the actor is subtle enough to convey such a despair .But Chabrol put him against a gallery of weirdos who would drive any man insane:a brunette whose behavior is completely implausible,played an unconvincing actress,Mathilda May;a vulgar unattractive wife -Ah Stephane Audran where are you ?- ;a brute of a fiancé who seems even more irrational than the hero,it's the last straw!On the paper the hero's thoughts and frames of mind made up for the implausibilities of the plot and built an atmosphere of ambiguity ,an ambiguity which is almost totally absent in the film,in spite of Malavoy's commendable efforts.To top it all,there's an irritating part of a cop (Kalfon) ,a la Colombo,gobbling up madeleines ,and hinting at Marcel Proust as he tries to remind his unusual suspect of what he may have done.

Because,like in a lot of Chabrol movies,people eat in in "le cri du hibou".The hero and his lady friend treat themselves to some delicious crêpes suzette (flambées) and cassolettes of langoustines:the neurotic is also a gourmet !And he does love the girl's home-made cookies!

Doing two movies a year,Chabrol makes frequently spotty works:such was the case of "le cri du hibou" , deservedly forgotten work,whereas the contemporary "masques " -released at the beginning of the same year- was a brilliant film noir turned almost farce.

A film described as being "in the Hitchcock tradition" usually means "a cheap imitation", and this French import is no exception. Director Claude Chabrol tries hard to invoke the spirit of the Master by adapting his screenplay from a story by Patricia Highsmith (author of 'Strangers on a Train') about a divorced artist with a fixation about birds (sound familiar?), whose voyeuristic attraction to the unhappily marries Mathilda May leads to a perfectly innocent, platonic friendship between two manic-depressive people. The plot kicks into gear after May's jealous husband disappears; birdman Christophe Malavoy is then accused of foul play, and the film goes to pieces in a hurry, collapsing into a random sampling of routine plot twists before ending in an unfair, inconclusive freeze-frame. It might have been an entertaining whodunit, but unlike his mentor Chabrol takes his scenario far too seriously: you only have to imagine the actors speaking their dialogue in English straight from the subtitles to realize how silly it really is. The film was made in 1987 but until 1991 was never released on this side of the Atlantic, and for good reason.

This Chabrol movie seems to be almost forgotten - given the few comments printed here and given the fact that it's unlikely to be mentioned among the maestros masterpieces. Even though it is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, and has some degree of tension in it, "Le Cri du Hibou" doesn't really draw the viewer inside the small world of it's handful of characters. Everyone in this film seems to have his private neurosis, and when fate bonds them all together, an explosive mixture is the result. Unfortunately (and unusually for Chabrol) the narration is not clever enough to tantalize the viewer. Instead, quite a bunch of implausible elements make it hard to enjoy the unfolding of the story. Then again, since it is the story of a man regarded as threat by his surrounding without ever wanting to threat anyone, a man seen as guilty without guilt (or is there guilt at his hands?), Chabrol had to avoid all too much realism. An ultra-realistic view at the same story would stop at 40 minutes; it would not be able to display the ideas driving the characters to their deeds like Chabrol does. Seen through this perspective, the film is quite an interesting statement.

Patricia Highsmith created one fascinating character in her novel: Nickie, the ex-wife of Robert Forester, here called Veronique. Virginie Thevenet plays her and she is terrific. Seductive, lying, violent and completely fascinating, she is the one thing in the movie that really works. Malavoy acts like a Boy Scout troop leader, May is dull and lifeless and Kalfon is hard to believe as a detective. Only Penot as the beefy handsome coward Soulages manages to rise to Thevenet's level. Chabrol was known for his cold, passionless thrillers; you went to them out of a sense of duty. Wasn't he after all one of the founding members of the New Wave? See it if it turns up on late night TV, and there's nothing else to watch.

M. Chabrol has done a strong, creditable job of transferring the powerfully discomforting world of Patricia Highsmith to the screen. Highsmith's characters become moral monsters through a condition of absolute confidence in their own warped psyches. These characters never learn, or understand themselves. Their lies to each other are absolute because they lie to themselves absolutely. No cliché goes unpunished. Characters become moral monsters without losing their sense of rightness. They seem powerless not to act in self-destructive ways.

The film is not equal to "Strangers on a Train" or "Purple Noon," other adaptations of Highsmith's work. But it is faithful in spirit to a novel which is itself not equal to the literary sources of these films. See it with an open mind and revel in the creepiness. Chabrol is a sufficiently great artist to allow another great artist her night cry.