Les abysses

Thrillers and/or horror movies that are based on true-crime cases are often the most fascinating and disturbing films to watch, simple because reality surpasses fiction and the wickedest imagination of scriptwriters. Sometimes, however, pure facts don't lend themselves to be processed into a film scenario, and it's better to read a novel or news articles - or even an accurate Wikipedia page, if available - to find out more about a notorious true-crime case. At least, that's the sentiment I felt throughout watching "Les Abysses", which is inspired by the bizarre case of the French Papin-sisters.

In 1933, near Le Mans, Christine and Léa Papin were working as housemaids in a wealthy family and barbarically murdered the lady of the house and her daughter. The facts in the case are morbidly intriguing, beyond any doubt, but the film is almost unwatchable. The pacing is intolerably slow, and the scenario is endlessly talkative. I can see this is necessary, in a way, to recreate the circumstances and to draw correct portraits of the emotionally liable sisters, but it's an ordeal to watch. Despite the sensitive - and, in 1963, still very controversial - themes like lesbianism and social class struggles, most of the film is just plain dull. The performances (by real-life sisters Francine and Colette Bergé) are very powerful, and the camerawork and set pieces are admirably stylish, but it's impossible to stay concentrated. That simply shouldn't be an issue when dealing with a sinister murder case.

I start with this quotation from French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, as it exemplifies how strong emotions were in the social turmoil that this film revived in 1963, 30 years and a world war after the real life crime committed in France by the Papin sisters. Or rather, how the breaking of three taboos at once, incest, lesbianism, and workers revolt, always stirs a turmoil of passions.

André Malraux imposed the showing of this film at the Cannes Film Festival 1963, after a public declaration of support from a large number of French intellectuals and artists, amidst a major uproar and social criticism. The followers of the Surrealism movement took the Papin sisters case as paradigm of class revolt, and a signal that a social revolution was already taking place. Romantics saw in these grisly murders the emergence of absolute Evil, like Lautréamont in `Les Chants de Maldoror'. Philosophers engaged in the socialist movement wrote passionate texts in defence of those maids, like Jean-Paul Sartre in `Le Mur', and Simone de Beauvoir in `La Force de l'âge'. Jacques Lacan, in `Écrits', will develop his first scientific essay on psicoanalysis, following the Papin criminal case. Jean Genet wrote `Les Bonnes' (English translation, `The Maids') pages that are still considered a must on the sombre aspects of humanity, and creating a sacrificial arena where death is preceded by its simulation - something that movie director elevated to the title of his film, `La Cérémonie'. An earlier made-for-television film by Michel Dumoulin, `Les Bonnes', is lesser known. Recently, two remakes brought controversy among critics again, in Europe and the United States: Nancy Meckler's `Sister, My Sister' (1994), and Jean-Pierre Denis' `Les Blessures assassines' (2000).

However, this older film or Genet's play are still recommended, by their treatment of the subject, and the dramatic intensity they reach.