The Color of Lies (Au Couer du mensonge)

Claude Chabrol turned out to be the most prolific director of the French New Wave, finding his method and material early and working it year by year to the present day. I may have seen ten of his films, but that just scratches the surface. Widely declared the French Hitchcock, his films all seem to show bourgeois life opening up a vein of violence. A sense of suspense drives the story, but the point is always psychological probing of ordinary people, families, and communities. I must have queued up this film because one of the characters is a painter, and his painting is taken seriously, so I might show this at the Clark one day, if I ever get around to a series on “Artists Behaving Badly,” to include Scarlet Street and others. I might also have been trolling for Sandrine Bonnaire films, since she seems to me the most interesting French actress of her generation. So here she’s the wife of an artist who falls under suspicion for the murder of one of his young drawing students. The plot is highly convoluted and basically beside the point. The setting in a village on the coastline of Brittany, however, is all important, as are the various interrelations among the inhabitants. The film is full of intelligent and interesting observation, if not visceral or conclusive. (1998, dvd, n.) *6+*