User reviews

Though I've always found it difficult to stomach the parallels between Hitchcock and Chabrol (another user on this site highlighted the similarities Chabrol shares with Clouzot, a comparison that I concur with, Chabrol sharing Clouzot's moral ambiguity/overall weltschmerz), it would be foolhardy to deny the broad Hitchcockian flourishes here. Dipped and dredged in LSD, the hallucinatory sequences in here nod reverently to "Vertigo" and "Marnie". Yet, unlike some hitchcock staples (no gripes with Hitch here, he is after all my all time favorite director), there is nary a hint of escapism here. Instead, Chabrol plunges us head-first into the depths of modern complacency, a project that we are all complicit in.

The story itself is another virulently acerbic "thriller of manners" for Chabrol, capturing with Flaubertian honesty the farce upon which class distinctions are built. Other than Clouzot, I've always felt that Chabrol's work comes closest to Bunuel's (no surprise that Cassel and Audran would also feature in Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie)- he brings a blowtorch to insipid, self-satisfied, hypocritical civilization, and dares to gaze into the vacuous abyss beneath. Like Bunuel and Fassbinder, he does this with consummate style and infuses his films with cruelly ironic wit.

Chabrol's films are always unnerving to watch because they come too close for comfort, and never allow us to be self-satisfied. He asks some terribly important questions: at what price are bourgeois myths of propriety, morality and civilization bought? In "The Unfaithful Wife", murder is necessary to sustain the idyll, while this movie offers a profound dissection of bourgeois identity- in order for bourgeois "decorousness" and privilege to survive, it must posit an Other, the sordid, vulgar, ill-educated boor, even if it doesn't exist. Throughout "La Rupture" the viewer witnesses the creation of these supposed "absolutes", the unfurling of the absurd narrative that legitimizes bourgeois entitlement- sully, tar and feather the peasant, the Other. Like homophobia, class prejudice is only an expression of the precariousness of identity, without an opposite to define oneself against, the suppositions invariably crumble.

Chabrol is an acutely intelligent, courageous and singularly brilliant film maker. Don't miss this deconstructive masterpiece...as an examination of class, I think only "La Ceremonie" would surpass this one.

ps i can't help but wonder if the eccentric, insular boarding-house here is an homage to balzac's maison vauqeur in his incomparable "Old Goriot"- both the altruistic doctor (Bianchot) and the moustachioed, absurdly eloquent tempter (Vautrin) are parodied/mirrored here

Intent on winning custody of their grandson who their son injured while stoned, an upper class couple set out to discredit and defame their daughter-in-law in this odd thriller from Claude Chabrol. Stéphane Audran plays the daughter-in-law, however, the majority of the film is curiously not told from her point-of-view but rather the perspective of a man hired to discredit her, played by Jean-Pierre Cassel. As such, the film does derive any juice from Audran wondering whether or not she is going insane (a la 'Gaslight'), which would not necessarily be a problem, except that Cassel's schemes are so strange and convoluted that it is obvious that they will fail before he even puts them into action. His attempts to spread gossip around the boarding house where Audran is staying are fairly credible. At his most incompetent though, Cassel tries to force Audran to eat a drugged candy (!) while his most bizarre plan involves his girlfriend wearing a wig and fondling Audran's landlady's mentally challenged daughter, expecting that the girl will mistake the wigged woman for Audran! With a perfectly terse music score and lots of fluid camera movements, 'La Rupture' still remains very watchable despite the messy plot, and the LSD-induced scenes towards the end need to be seen to be believed. There is also a lot of memorable weirdness throughout, such as Cassel's girlfriend always being nude (or partially naked) and her fondling scene, complete with an X-rated Satanic film projected in a darkened room might well rate as the very strangest sequence that Chabrol ever committed to celluloid.

La rupture concerns a marriage that has imploded, the fight for custody between the bourgeois grandparents and the mother, and the ensuing dirty tricks.

There's a quote from Racine at the beginning "Mais quelle épaisse nuit tout a coup m'environne", "What utter darkness suddenly surrounds me". That's the feeling Chabrol is trying to deliver, I presume. It didn't stack up that way for me, successive attempts to shock worked only sporadically, it was like a few firecrackers going off for me rather than a chain reaction building up to a grand finale; precious little tension was sustained. The overall feeling I got was more of the banality of evil.

Stéphane Audran as the mother (Hélène Régnier) was almost anodyne throughout, soothing to the eye and nonplussed even when (metaphorically) the blindfold is taken away from her eyes and she finds a hooded cobra in front of her. I was worried that Marguerite Cassan as the "backwards" girl Emilie was hamming it up too much, and that the main concession to making her appear disabled was a large pair of silly glasses. Then I think Paul Thomas is an odd character, totally immoral, but not very human, we don't see that he's a sadist, or that he's upset about what he's doing. He seems almost bored at times. At the one point where there is fighting in the film it looked like stage fighting rather than film fighting.

Chabrol even seems to sabotage his own efforts by introducing a superfluous character, the kindly and highly caricatured Thespian Gerard Mostelle, who defuses every scene he is in, and was not even good for laughs.

La rupture is however, not as bad as I make out, there is some standout photography, generally involving a park and some balloons. There's also a very nasty scene involving some black and white pornography that stays with you.

There has been some talk about this movie being a condemnation of the bourgeois, well in my opinion, the movie is about as ideological as a biscuit. I would far rather recommend another Chabrol's movie to those looking for that subject matter, his icy-cold movie Juste avant la nuit, co-incidentally it also stars Stéphane Audran and Michel Bouquet.

I should note that some of the scenes in this movie will be far more poignant to individuals who have gone through nasty breakups of long term relationships, which is not something that has ever happened to me.

LA RUPTURE is one of Claude Chabrol's most devastating critiques of the bourgeoisie and it's one of his finest films. It's about a working wife and mother fighting for custody of her small son after the boy's drug-addicted father has attacked them, only to find her husband's rich parents have hired a sleazy, corrupt investigator to destroy her reputation. The film isn't flawless; there are too many extraneous and eccentric characters but the main plot is beautifully handled, (it's based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong), and Stephane Audran as the wife and Jean-Pierre Cassel as the investigator are both terrific. Of course, you may think Chabrol's decision to treat such a serious subject as domestic violence purely as a thriller a little tasteless but fundamentally this isn't really a film about domestic violence at all but an almost Dickensian study of evil; the bourgeoisie parents are distinctly rotten, the investigator even more so. If the film were more 'realistic' it might be unbearable; there's a scene of potential child sex abuse, and the child is mentally handicapped, that is almost too bizarre to be really disturbing and the film gets very bizarre towards the end. However, even with its convoluted plot it works superbly both as an outright thriller and as a scathing indictment of a highly amoral society.

After having heard so much about the work of Chabrol, I was frankly disappointed with this film, which was my first encounter with his work. Not only did I find the pacing of the film agonisingly slow and lumbering, I found the plot to be frankly ludicrous. Whilst this is not always a problem,I can't believe that people can appreciate such an ill thought out plotline . I also found the hints at symbolism to be deeply confused and the anti-bourgeois sentiment to be far to "in your face". On the whole, a let down.

The parents of Charles, the loser and addict husband, who are impossibly bourgeoise, begin the cycle of dishonesty and class warfare, in their attempt to gain custody of the child. Helene is followed, harassed and finally drugged; her fear, paranoia and her hallucinations are "real" and very powerful. This is Chabrol at his best, giving a scathing critique of the whims and overall avarice of the bourgeoise and upper class while showing you the terrible fate of a very mortal character who is trying to escape from the mistake of marrying wealth and position.

First, this film is very sloppy in its narrative. The exposition is very poor, so you never can tell - for instance - how far the provincial town where the action takes place is from Paris. This matters because while one character is allegedly flying over from Paris, another one can go to Paris and back within two hours. Just as the location is vague, so are the characters. Compare the characters of La Rupture to those in variously successful similar movies of the same period (Marnie - Rosemary's Baby - Secret Ceremony - the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie - the Bride Wore Black, the Naked Kiss), and you'll realize that you know nothing about the characters in the Chabrol film. Stéphane Audran has enormous star quality, but her acting is flat and uninvolving (Constance Towers or Tippi Hedren are like Katina Paxinou compared to Audran). The rest of the cast chews up the scenery shamelessly to disguise the plot gaps. And don't tell me about the critique of French bourgeoisie. There is more of that in Peau d'Ane. La Rupture may have been well received at the time, but it is a dated and lazy piece of movie-making.

The Breach (aka La rupture) is a film made by celebrated French director Claude Chabrol in the middle of his golden period at the turn of the 70's. Like most of his other films from this time, it is a psychological thriller that is more interested in character interactions than in suspense. While it is true that there is some of that present here too, there isn't a lot and the film only truly moves into thriller territory in its final quarter. In fact, the switch is quite jarring and has left some thinking it doesn't fit very well alongside what has gone before. I kind of liked the ending though, it isn't especially realistic and even becomes a bit surreal, yet the story on the whole has got an oddness about it generally, typified by the unsettling and somewhat off-centre musical score used throughout. The story revolves around a woman called Hélène who is the wife of a rich layabout drug addict. One day he attacks her and their child, leaving the boy hospitalised. Hélène attacks him back leaving him with a head injury. His rich father hires a sleazy friend of the family to befriend Hélène with the objective of incriminating her, leading to a divorce that would favour his son.

Like a lot of Chabrol's best works this one stars his wife, the radiant Stéphane Audran who is, once more, extremely good and sympathetic as Hélène, Jean-Pierre Cassel is also impressive as her manipulative 'friend', while it would be remiss not to mention Catherine Rouvel also, who is a lot of fun as his highly sexed girlfriend who pleasingly spends most of the film in a state of undress (ooh la la). In fact, there is a plethora of oddball side characters in this one, most live in the boarding house where the majority of the action revolves around, such as three old ladies who continually play with Tarot cards, a mentally-backwards girl and an overly-dramatic actor. On top of this, it's nicely photographed, especially in the surreal park scene towards the end where things get a little trippy. The film criticises the bourgeois, with the rich grandparents acting like it is their right to dictate events purely on account of their financial strength. But the film works mainly as an off-kilter psychological drama/thriller, underpinned by fine acting and some good direction.

When the aspirant writer Charles Régnier (Jean-Claude Drouot), who is drug addicted and mentally ill, throws his four year-old son Michel against the kitchen wall in a rage attack, his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran) defends her son and herself, hitting Charles several times with a frying pan. Her neighbor takes Hélène and Michel to the hospital and the boy has to be interned with a broken leg and concussion. Hélène works as bartender and has supported her family alone since her wealthy father-in-law Ludovic Régnier (Michel Bouquet) hates that Charles has married with someone uneducated from the lower classes. Hélène finds a low-budget boarding house nearby the hospital and rents a simple room to be close to her beloved son. Further, she hires a lawyer to get the divorce and the custody of Michel. Ludovic is advised by his lawyer that Hélène would win the custody and he hires the lowlife Paul Thomas (Jean- Pierre Cassel), who is totally broken and desperately needs money, to find dirt evidences against the Hélène. The vile Paul lures Hélène telling that he is very ill and moves to the boarding house. After a while, he does not find anything against Hélène and he decides to fabricate evidences to destroy her reputation. But things do not work as planned.

I have seen many excellent films of the master of suspense Claude Chabrol, but "La Rupture" is probably the best film I have seen of this French director and a masterpiece of human cruelty and sordidness. Chabrol usually criticizes the bourgeois class in his movies, and the fight between classes is shown in "La Rupture", with a sharp demonstration of how destructive the prejudice and the power of money may be. The plot presents wealthy characters; some of them are just glanced like the actor in the boarding house but everyone has an important role in the dark story. Paul Thomas is among the most despicable villains I have ever seen, with his corrupted soul. I could write pages about this masterpiece but instead, I prefer to recommend to viewers of good taste to see it. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

If one was to choose a 'French' equivalent of Hitchcock, I would say Claude Chabrol is the closest you can get. 'La Rupture' is a must for those who don't know the director's talent and thus art. As always, I would truly advise people to see this in French with subtitles for dubbed films aren't as accurate.

The alternative English-language title of this one, THE BREAK UP, always seemed to me to imply that Chabrol had made a typically classy treatment of the theme of a family going through divorce proceedings a full decade before that Oscar-laden triumph KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979). However, the film's very opening sequence obliterates that misconception immediately and completely: the quiet breakfast being enjoyed by a mother (the ubiquitous Stephane Audran playing, as usual, a character named Helene) and her little son is suddenly shattered by the unkempt and sinister appearance of the father (Jean-Claude Drouot – perhaps best-known for playing Yul Brynner's long-haired right-hand man in THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD the following year) who is clearly in some kind of daze brought on by the use of illegal substances.

The couple start arguing and, just as the man seems about to slap the woman, he grabs the kid and literally throws him clear across the room; the latter hits his head violently against the edge of a kitchen cupboard and lands in a bloody puddle on the floor! It is a thoroughly shocking sequence – not just because it is totally unexpected and comes so early in the film but also since this utterly vile act is committed by a father upon his own son! Previously, I had equally gasped at a similar deed featuring in Ingmar Bergman's influential period piece THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960) but, again, the blood link between abuser and abused here makes the action all the more reprehensible.

Actually, the film's original French title, LA RUPTURE, should from the outset have been more suggestive to what was in store for the perceptive viewer and, indeed, can be interpreted to allude to various characters and events: the dissolution of the couple's socially incompatible marriage; the gash in the kid's head (he is confined to a hospital bed for the duration of the film and is never again seen in a conscious state); the wrecking of the illusory brashness with which down-on-his-luck mole (Jean-Pierre Cassel, effectively cast against type) callously spins a web of deceit around Audran in a frame-up engineered by her all-powerful father-in-law (Michel Bouquet, also uncharacteristically portraying a villain) to ensure the custody of his grandson; and, at the film's conclusion, the cracking of Audran's very sanity – not only through the incredible events happening around her, but also because of her unwittingly imbibing a drug-spiked orange juice drink concocted by Cassel!!

And what about the breach in Chabrol's own stylistic approach to such archetypal material, taking in as it does a healthy dose of black comedy (the eccentric inhabitants at the foreclosing boarding house where Audran and Cassel install themselves – including three elderly tarot-playing snoops, delusional thespian Mario David, boozing landlord Jean Carmet and his bespectacled, "backward" daughter Katia Romanoff), sleazy bedroom antics (courtesy of Cassel's perennially nude and horny girl played by the delectable Catherine Rouvel) and even outright psychedelia (Audran's kaleidoscopic vision of friendly balloon vendor Dominique Zardi)! Evidently, Chabrol wears his well-documented Fritz Lang influence on his sleeve even in this case! For the record, the film under review is based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong, of whose works Chabrol would later also adapt MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT (2000).

The first-rate ensemble cast also boasts a handful of other notable names: Michel Duchassoy (star of that which is arguably Chabrol's finest achievement, 1969's THIS MAN MUST DIE – appearing here as Audran's sympathetic lawyer), Angelo Infanti (as the doctor treating Audran's son and a lodger in her peculiar dwelling) and even Belgian director extraordinaire Harry Kumel (who, I am ashamed to say, I did not recognize…even though I know how he looks today from recent photographs and past DVD supplements!). As always with Chabrol during this major phase in his career, the impeccable accomplishments of cinematographer Jean Rabier and composer Pierre Jansen (who contributes a strikingly unsettling score) can never be underestimated.

Incidentally, Audran and Cassel would later appear as an oversexed married couple in Luis Bunuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972) and, again, in Chabrol's star-studded THE TWIST (1976) which, ironically, is reputed to be his nadir(!) – and, of course, Audran and Bouquet also played husband and wife in Chabrol's THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE (1969; which, like THE BREACH itself, can be counted among Chabrol's Top 5 movies) and JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL (1971); besides, probably as a result of this same Franco-Italo-Belgian co-production, Bouquet and Cassel would themselves be subsequently engaged to participate in Harry Kumel's own exhilarating magnum opus, MALPERTUIS (1971).

Like Graham Greene's so-called entertainments, this film veers into melodrama, but it never seemed unreal to me and was certainly a pleasure to watch. The highlight for me was the machinations of the lowlife hired to bring the heroine down. I also got drawn into the setting of the rooming house and the warmth of the more innocent people that give strength to the heroine. Acting, as always in a Chabrol film, is superb.

The main problem with "La Rupture" / "The Breach" is that it goes on for a full two hours, but its story is really quite simple and did not need so long to play out. And this is much more of a drama than a thriller, so there is little tension or suspense. Chabrol's clever camera-work, Pierre Jansen's weird music score, and a plethora of kooky characters help create a hypnotic, sometimes even surreal effect. But the film is very slow and talky, and on top of that it ends rather unsatisfyingly. Stéphane Audran plays a strong female character, Jean-Pierre Cassel is excellent as her suave and manipulative new "friend", but the most fun performances come from the supporting roles; Catherine Rouvel spends much of the movie showing off her magnificent body in the nude. Overall, a film for patient and dedicated Chabrol fans. ** out of 4.