The beast must die

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Movie
German title The beast must die
Original title Que la bete meure
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1969
length 112 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Claude Chabrol
script Paul Gégauff , Claude Chabrol
production André Génovès
music Pierre Jansen , Johannes Brahms
camera Jean Rabier
cut Jacques Gaillard
occupation

The Beast Must Die (Que la bête meure) is a 1969 film by Claude Chabrol based on the detective novel Das Biest ( The Beast Must Die ) by Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis ).

action

The nine-year-old son Michel of the widowed writer Charles Thénier is killed at a crossroad by a ruthless driver who runs away without being recognized. After Charles has overcome his initial pain, he decides to find the culprit and kill him, but there is no evidence, the police investigation is inconclusive. By chance, Charles learns that the television actress Hélène Lanson was in the car. To find out whether she or someone else drove the car, he seeks Hélène's acquaintance and becomes her lover. During a short vacation in Brittany, she introduces him to her family. So he ends up in the house of her brother-in-law, the garage owner Paul Decourt. Paul immediately proves to be an arrogant disgust who only takes advantage of other people and harasses and humiliates his own family at every opportunity. During a tour of Paul's workshop, Charles finds the car involved in the accident and Paul the fugitive.

Although Paul is also loathed by the rest of the family except his mother, Charles does not reveal his intentions to anyone, but explicitly writes his wish to kill Paul in the diary he keeps with him. A surrogate father relationship develops between Charles and Paul's teenage son Philippe. Philippe, who also hates his father profoundly, even openly asks Charles to murder Paul, otherwise he will do it himself.

When Paul almost falls off the cliff on a beach excursion together, Charles first wants to take the opportunity, but then he saves Paul's life and later persuades him to go on a sailing trip for two in order to let him go overboard undisturbed. But in the boat Paul pulls a gun and forces Charles to return: he has read his diary and is aware of Charles' true intentions; the diary is already with Paul's lawyer. They return to shore, Charles is thrown out of the house and leaves with Hélène. When he explains to her during a break on the journey that he is the father of the boy who was run over and that he wants to take revenge on Paul, they learn from a TV report that Paul was fatally poisoned at the time of their departure and that they both suffered from the Police are wanted. You return to Paul's house.

Charles initially denies the crime, but is arrested on strong suspicion by the inspector, who has read the diary, although Charles defends himself that he had to give up all murder plans after he knew from Paul that the diary would be the Police would become known. While the inspector is still wondering whether Charles may have deliberately launched the diary to exonerate him for this reason, Philippe appears, confesses the murder and, as evidence, hands over the medicine bottle in which he mixed the rat poison and which he hid in the cellar after the murder . Charles does not comment on it, leaves the police station as a free man and announces to Hélène that he will explain everything to her the next morning. However, he does not do this personally, but in the form of a suicide note to be forwarded to the police, in which Charles explains in detail that he committed the murder alone, and Philippe expressly exonerates: The thought of the murderer's son for the revenge murder of his son It is tempting to atone, but his pain has not made him so numb. He himself is now going out to sea and will disappear there forever.

background

Once again Chabrol calls his protagonist "Hélène", a role name that is otherwise reserved for his wife Stéphane Audran (The Eye of Evil; The Butcher; The Unfaithful Woman; The Rift; Before Nightfall).

The song Because people like cattle ( Koh 3,19-22  LUT ) from the four serious songs by Johannes Brahms , sung by Kathleen Ferrier , runs through the film as a basic musical motif.

Reviews

"" The Beast Must Die "shows Chabrol's art at an artistic height. His true mastery is shown in the detail and in an imperceptible way of giving things that seem clear a different character. There can be no doubt about the gloom of his work and the pessimistic view of bourgeois society when he describes the most negative person as the most lively - in doing so he questions life itself and finally comes back to his initial sounds: "O Death, how bitter are you ... "."

- filmzentrale.com

"Less of a thriller than a dramatic description of human behaviors and drives in the style of Chabrol."

- Lexicon of international film

“In this film, too, Chabrol uses the structure of the crime film without making one. Nothing is hidden, the only insecure is the psyche of his people. Chabrol doesn't want to show a confused story, but rather to confuse the viewer. "

- Protestant film observer

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Beast Must Die . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2006 (PDF; test number: 107 724 DVD).
  2. ↑ Review: “The Beast Must Die” , filmzentrale.com, by Udo Rotenberg
  3. ↑ Ev. Munich Press Association, Review No. 535/1970