You Ain't Seen Me, Right? – Les Diaboliques (1955)

Films didn’t just start with Star Wars, y’know. Before that, there was Jaws, and before that there was The Wizard of Oz. You Ain't Seen Me, Right? is the weekly feature that looks at those few other films in between.

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Les Diaboliques (1955)
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Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the masters of the psychologically dense genre film, successfully marrying convention and complexity in films like the timeless proto-action masterpiece The Wages of Fear (1953). Regarded as the French Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense was a huge admirer of Clouzot’s and shared many of his sensibilities. Indeed, Hitchcock intended to make Les Diaboliques before Clouzot bought the rights for the novel from under him; leading him to make an adaptation of Robert Bloch’s Psycho instead. Like Psycho, Les Diaboliques was subjected to the obligatory unnecessary remake: Diabolique (1996) stars Sharon Stone, and is best avoided.

Christina (Vera Clouzot) is a mild-mannered teacher at a provincial boarding school. She is married to its disciplinarian headmaster, Michel (Paul Meurisse), who is having an affair with one of Christina’s fellow teachers, Nicole (Simone Signoret). Tired of his mistreatment, Nicole and Christina hatch a plan to kill Michel and dump his body in the school’s fetid swimming pool. When the pool is drained, Nicole and Christina are plunged into a world of doubt, paranoia and suspicion.

The similarities between this supernatural landmark and Hitchcock’s slasher classic are striking, from its gallows humour, to George Van Parys’ chilling score. Clouzout’s detached camerawork makes every close-up count; using a device also beloved by Hitchcock whereby the viewer is given more information than the characters, a counterintuitive move that perversely serves to increase the tension of a scene. Both men took joy in exploring the horror of the everyday, divesting the genre of its fantastical elements and anchoring it firmly in reality.



Screen siren Signoret conveys effortless cool as the laconic, wilful instigator of the murderous plot, standing in stark contrast to Clouzot’s ethereal beauty and brittle demeanour; the dynamic of their relationship representing the conflict between modern emancipation and traditional subservience. Meurisse does a terrific job of making the viewer hate him as the vindictive, philandering bully; a character so loathsome and overbearing that one can feel little sympathy for his demise. An array of colourful peripheral characters provides much of the film’s levity, most notably Charles Vanel as the wily investigator.

Les Diaboliques could be interpreted on any number of allegorical levels - a parable on reason versus superstition, a feminist tract – but, at its heart, it is an enthralling shocker whose darkness time has done little to diminish. Clouzot doesn’t pander to the horror genre’s simplistic ‘black hat, white hat’ morality, subtly manipulating the audience’s emotions by reminding us throughout that we are rooting for the perpetrators of a murder.

Les Diaboliques remains essential viewing while so many films of its ilk have receded into hokey irrelevance because it effectively plays on our innate fears. Clouzot understood that psychological terror leaves a lasting mark - the mental torture inflicted on Christina and Nicole is more shocking than anything the lurid imaginations of Eli Roth at al. could concoct; the school’s long, ominous corridors brimming with foreboding. From Stanley Kubrick to Guillermo Del Toro, Clouzot’s influence permeates the work of countless directors.
Good stuff! Now let’s all have a brain break and watch Friends. More from You Ain’t Seen Me, Right? next week.