Baudelaire wrote about the many flowers of evil that enchant and destroy men and women, but director Chabrol picks only one from this pernicious garden -- the intergenerational betrayal that afflicts an upper-middle class French family. Just as Aunt Line's husband betrayed the French resistance to help the Nazis, so does the present father and husband of this household betray his wife's political ambitions (he's the author of the scurrilous tract that slanders her and her family, and personally betrays her through his adulterous affairs). Yet this tense and elegant thriller is never didactic or judgemental: its wry and sometimes boisterous sense of humor, typically Chabrol and very Gallic, is just one of many tones that this splendid director wields. Acted with great mastery by, especially, Suzanne Flon (as Aunt Line) and Benoit Magimal as her hunky grandson, this is one flower of evil that delights the eye and ear of sentient moviegoers.
Review of The Flower of Evil
