One of the best French directors comes to LA with “Claude Chabrol Series”

By GalaTView staff

Photos by: Courtesy

From director Claude Chabrol, the most interesting “Claude Chabrol Series” come  to Los Angeles for a special one-week theatrical engagement. The best and realistic plots with remarkable behavior are coming up with:

BETTY

Starring Jean-Francois Garreaud, Marie Trintignant, Stephane Audran

Alone and drunk, Betty, is led to a Paris restaurant by a stranger.  Here, she meets an older woman, Laure, with whom she strikes up an instant rapport.  The two women seem to have suffered the same lot in their lives.  Laure takes Betty back to her hotel and helps to cure the young woman of her depression and alcoholism.  Little by little, Betty pieces together her recent history and realizes that perhaps her life is not worth living. Then she meets Mario (Jean-Francoise Garreaud), Laure’s lover.

THE COLOR OF LIES

AU COEUR DU MENSONGE

Starring Antoine de Caunes, Jacques Gamblin, Sandrine Bonnaire

In a little village in Brittany, a 10 year old girl is found murdered. René, an artist by profession and the girl’s art teacher, is the last person to have seen her and he is immediately questioned by the police inspector in charge of the enquiry. In this little provincial village where everyone knows one another, René soon becomes the primary suspect in the eyes of his neighbors. The suspicion threatens to destroy his life and marriage.

NIGHT CAP

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT

Starring Anna Mouglalis, Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc

Claude Chabrol’s taut thriller stars Isabelle Huppert as the villainous spider at the centre of an intricate and murderous web of deception. Huppert plays Mika, wife of celebrated pianist Andre Polonski (Jacques Dutronc) and stepmother to his son, Guillaume, whose mother died in a car wreck on his sixth birthday. Their lives are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Jeanne (Anna Mouglalis), a young woman who has learned that she was almost switched at birth with Guillaume whilst in hospital. Also a pianist, Jeanne harbors a suspicion that she may be Andre’s daughter. Andre undertakes to continue her piano tuition, but, on entering the Polonski family, Jeanne begins to notice the icily controlled Mika behaving strangely. Her suspicions aroused, Jeanne begins the dangerous task of unraveling Mika’s dark past of secrets and lies…

THE SWINDLE

RIEN NE VA PLUS

SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: SILVER SEASHELL WINNER – BEST DIRECTOR – CLAUDE CHABROL

Starring Isabelle Huppert, Michel Serrault, Francois Cluzet

Betty and Victor tour quietly around France in their motor home living safely on part-time swindles…until they become involved in a scam with high stakes and international implications. Chabrol’s 50th film is a deft and entertaining thriller.

THE TORMENT

L’ENFER

Starring Emmanuelle Beart, Francois Cluzet, Nathalie Cardone

Paul (François Cluzet) has just bought a charming waterfront hotel in the heart of France. In debt for the next ten years, he sets to work with his beautiful new wife, Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart). The life of the young couple resembles a dream come true until Paul’s suspicions and jealousy get the best of him. His increasing obsession turns into madness that ends in a tragedy.

All these films become almost private jokes, made to amuse Claude Chabrol. Definitely are too much about internal death and not enough about life. All kinds of feelings are shown in each character and makes each story a different masterworks. Chabrol continued making provocative, absorbing in all these films, seemingly unaffected by the tides of fashion.