The Flower of Evil

Claude Chabrol, the grand master of the coolly unsettling French psycho-thriller, fashions another seductive winner in The Flower of Evil, his 50th film. A look behind the facade of an upper-class provincial family harboring dark secrets from the past, the clan includes Anne, a politician running for mayor; her husband Gerard, a philandering and cynical pharmacist; their son Francois, recently returned from studies in America; their stepdaughter Michele, long in love with her stepbrother (who also happens to be her cousin); and aging aunt Line, who was once accused of killing her father, a Nazi collaborator. The tension among these five is palpable from the beginning, but it escalates considerably when a scurrilous pamphlet is circulated attacking Anne's candidacy by revealing the family's sordid history. An elegant exercise in mood and style, creating an atmosphere of suppressed anger and vague dread leavened by typically Chabrolian touches of mordant humor, this is a witty, gently unsettling, occasionally macabre, and always sophisticated gem. Recommended. (F. Swietek)