A superbly stylish and baroque crime thriller which marks a return for Chabrol to the bravura incorporation of pulp conventions that distinguished some of his earlier work. But here the convoluted plot draws us inexorably through a minefield of kaleidoscopically changing relationships at the kind of measured pace that allows the film to accumulate all sorts of tragic resonances. There are innumerable bold strokes as Chabrol treads from irony to irony, ambiguity to ambiguity. Romy Schneider is fascinating as the icy wife plotting to rid herself of her boorish husband (doubts about Steiger fade as the film progresses), and the minor characters - including a characteristically histrionic lawyer and two policemen given to discussing the case over meals of various dimensions - are drawn with absolute precision.

The first hour of "Les Innocents aux mains sales" (Innocents with Dirty Hands, 1975) is a seemingly straightforward variant on "The Postman Always Rings Twice," set in St. Tropez. It begins with Romy Schneider's Julie sunbathing nude on the grounds of a villa above the Mediterranean and a kite that falls from the sky onto her. The kite belongs, not to a child, but to a handsome adult, Jeff (Paolo Giusti), who gingerly removes it. Soon he is Julie's lover. And before long, they are plotting to kill her older husband, the habitually drunken, impotent Louis (Rod Steiger) and enjoy his money without the impediment of him. Sound like "The Postman Always Rings Twice"? The formula is the same, at a higher level of wealth and status.

Being a Claude Chabrol movie, there are some twists (including an ironic final one from the realm from which the 1940s movie ending came). I do not want to spoil the plot by commenting on any of its twists and turns. The second half is considerably less routine than the first. (Instead of "Postman," one of the relevant predecessors of the second half of the movie is "Diabolique.") I do not want to spoil the plot by commenting on any of its twists and turns.

But I have to say that none of the seven leading characters (in addition to the standard triangle, there's the accountant and two police inspectors, and a lawyer) is sympathetic. As with many Chabrol movies, the pleasures are akin to watching scorpions in a bottle fighting to the death. Jean Rochefort has the most fun as a lawyer named "Legal." He also has the best lines: "Lawyers never shut up" and "The law is written by men and enforced by men for the benefit of men." Chabrol is often accused of misogyny. This outing has some sympathy for the lone female lead (Schneider). A charge of misanthropy could easily be sustained against Chabrol, however.

There are an inordinate number of rooms with green walls in the movie, most of them an ugly, sickly green, although there is a more vibrantly green one for a scene in which Julie is close to mute near the end. Having recently seen Schneider in several major roles in European movies from her prime in the early 1970s (Boccaccio '70, The Last Train, and this), I have concluded that she was quite remote even in her non-Hollywood roles. She was very contained in the other two. Here she emotes, but does nothing to make the characters or viewers sympathize with her. She was very beautiful, though the camera did not love her as much as it did Greta Garbo (the queen of remote).

Steiger is OK in a part harking back to the one he played in "The Big Knife" two decades earlier. Giusti is more a sex object than Schneider, which is to say that he little to do other than smolder. The police inspectors (Francose Maistre and Pierre Santini) are theory-prone in a very French way. They could ruminate more in the Maigret manner.

Информация о фильме:
Название: Невинные с грязными руками
Оригинальное название: Les innocents aux mains sales
Год выхода: 1975
Жанр: драма, триллер, криминал, нео-нуар, экранизация
Режиссер / Director: Клод Шаброль / Claude Chabrol
Сценарий / Writers: Richard Neely (novel), Claude Chabrol (adaptation)
Оператор / Cinematography by: Jean Rabier
Original Music by: Pierre Jansen