Wednesday, January 6, 2010

#8 Diabolique: Die and do it quickly!

1955. dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse. French with subtitles.

Seen it before? No.


Translation: "Don't be devils. Don't ruin the interest your friends could take in this film. Don't tell them what you saw. Thank you for them."

THIS, M. Night Shyamalan. THIS is how you do a movie with a twist ending. Just enough of a twist that the audience doesn't see it coming, but not so much of a twist that it's still totally plausible. Even obvious in retrospect.

The movie is about two women who conspire to murder the headmaster of a boarding school. Véra Clouzot plays the wife of the headmaster, and Simone Signoret plays a teacher at the school who had an affair with the headmaster. The latter is totally perfect as an icy, ruthless femme fatale. She reminded me of Kim Novak in Vertigo or Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. They did a remake of this movie in 1996 with Sharon Stone in that role.... I haven't seen it, but it stars Sharon Stone, so how bad could it be?

I won't give away any more of the plot, but there's no killer trees or anything like that. It's very suspenseful and darkly funny. Highly recommended.

Position on the list: 173
The best Sharon Stone movie: Total Recall

No comments:

Post a Comment