This was my first Claude Chabrol film and I gotta say I was really impressed. Chabrol is from the 50s/60s French New Wave crop alongside Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer etc, and I think he’s generally considered the most mainstream one due to his straightforward plots. This one is pretty straightforward but I think he does that to mask the deeper meanings under the surface.

The ending was really memorable and exposes the meaning I think. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen this but basically we get the reveal without a clear resolution. It ends on a really climactic note… literally “climactic” as the camera rises above the action higher & higher almost to infinity. To me it drives the point home that these are ridiculous people, and the camera’s rise makes them look like they’re center ring in a circus. It almost doesn’t matter what happens next because it’s all part of the ridiculous show of the rich & famous.

Skewering the decadent elite class was a favorite subject with the French & Italian New Wavers, and I think this film fits right in line with Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Antonioni’s La Notte maybe even more powerful because it doesn’t smack us over the head with total absurdism but instead keeps the characters believable.

Anthony Perkins steals the show. I loved him in Psycho but I think this role is what he was made for—a bored bourgeois who doesn’t seem to register murder as anything more than a minor social annoyance. Like in the scene where the tv blows up and he stands there staring at the smoke as if he’s waiting for the commercial break to end lol