Before night fell

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Movie
German title Before night fell
Original title Just avant la nuit
Country of production France , Italy
original language French
Publishing year 1971
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Claude Chabrol
script Edward Atiyah (novel)
Claude Chabrol
production André Génovès
music Pierre Jansen
camera Jean Rabier
cut Jacques Gaillard
occupation

Before Nightfall is a 1971 feature film by French director Claude Chabrol . The screenplay is based on Edward Atiyah's 1951 novel The Thin Line. It focuses on a successful Parisian advertising man (played by Michel Bouquet ) who is after the murder of his beloved is confronted with remorse and the desire for atonement. The film, which premiered on March 31, 1971 in France, was produced by Cinegai SpA and Les Films de la Boétie .

action

The Parisian advertising man Charles Masson is successful in his profession. He had an impeccable marriage to the elegant Hélène and had two well-off children. The family has integrated a black maid and lives in a modern suburban villa. But Charles is secretly having an affair with the masochistic Laura. She is the wife of her friend, interior designer François Tellier, and also a friend of Hélène. Charles and Laura are passionate about indulging in SM games . When they meet again, Charles strangles Laura during the act of love. As if stunned, Charles leaves the corpse behind in the apartment that was specially used for the affairs. He seeks solace in a nearby bar, where he gets drunk. There he meets François, from whom he hides the truth.

The investigations by the criminal investigation department come to nothing, and the Massons attend Laura's funeral. Charles's infidelities, however, have not gone unnoticed. A friend of Laura's, who made the apartment available to them, had seen Charles two months earlier and recognized him at the funeral. François is informed, but asks the acquaintance to leave the police out of the game.

Meanwhile, Charles becomes more and more apathetic and one night has a nervous breakdown. He concludes that he hated Laura and the sexual power she had over him and that he has to pay for the crime. Tormented by remorse and the need for atonement, Charles tells his wife Hélène about the affair and a few days later about the killing during the subsequent vacation. However, there are no arguments or blame. Hélène can understand her husband's motives and is devoted to him despite everything. She advises him not to go to the police or tell François anything.

Charles then turns to François. But the widower also advises his old friend to let the affair go. A confession to the police could not bring Laura back either, but it could destroy Charles and his family.

Both Hélène and François try to convince Charles to forget the crime and move on. But he begins to break down more and more from self-imposed guilt. He plans against the will of his wife, who sees no moral use in this endeavor, to face the next day. When he asks Hélène for a sleeping pill, she serves him a glass of water with an overdose of laudanum . His death is portrayed as suicide.

Reviews

"An occasionally a bit constructed, but staged with psychological finesse, the impressively destructive aspects of an only half-completed emancipation from bourgeois Christian moral concepts."

- Lexicon of international film

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ruled that, seen from the outside, Chabrol's films would appear "as smooth, perfect, functional" as those of Claude Lelouch . Michel Bouquets and Stéphane Audran's figures can hardly be consumed with relish for “thinkers” unless, according to the godfather , “killing is an unavoidable activity in the rhythm of life of the established”. "The cynicism would then be complete," said the FAZ reviewer.

David Robinson ( The Times ) drew comparisons to Chabrol's The Unfaithful Woman (1969), in which the theme and character constellation are similar. The murder is more than just an incident than in the previous work, "an almost arbitrary motive for the moral drama", which is designed with cool elegance and esprit and a "strange unsentimental warmth", concentrated and economic. Chabrol remains a "masterful storyteller [...]."

American critic Roger Ebert ( Chicago Sun-Times ) praised Before Nightfall as one of Chabrol's best films on his favorite subject - the "dark desires and cherished secrets" behind the French bourgeoisie. The film is a "meditation on guilt."

Awards

Stéphane Audran won the 1974 British Film Award for Best Actress for both her role as Hélène in Before Nightfall and her role in Luis Buñuel's Oscar-winning work The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) .

literature

  • Edward Atiyah: The Thin Line. Davies, London 1951.

Web links

Commons : Film locations of Just Before Nightfall (1971)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for before nightfall . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2008 (PDF; test number: 113 428 DVD).
  2. ↑ cf. Release dates in the Internet Movie Database (accessed on September 16, 2010)
  3. ↑ cf. Company credits in the Internet Movie Database (accessed September 16, 2010)
  4. ^ Before nightfall. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ cf. The moral killer. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 6, 1972, p. 2.
  6. ↑ cf. David Robinson: The charm of Chabrol's bourgeoisie . In: The Times , April 13, 1973, Issue 58757, p. 11.
  7. ↑ cf. Roger Ebert: Just Before Nightfall , February 24, 1976 (accessed September 15, 2010).