La Rupture (1970)

Rupture, La (1970, FRA/ITA/BEL) C-116m. ***½ D: Claude Chabrol. Starring Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Michel Bouquet, Annie Cordy, Jean-Claude Drouot, Jean Carmet, Harry Kümel, Dominique Zardi, Michel Duchaussoy. After a violent attack by her psychotic husband, which puts their son into a hospital, Audran intends to get a divorce. She meets fierce resistance by her father-in-law, rich, influential Bouquet, who won't stop at making her appear a bad mother. However, the intrigue spun by him will bring tragic results. First-rate, fascinating drama about the amorality of the bourgeois society is in the league of Ingmar Bergman's films about failed (or failing) marriages. Writer-director Chabrol based his psychogram of a woman who comes undone on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong; thirty years later he filmed another one of her novels as MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT (2000). Bizarre, excellent score by Pierre Jansen, photographed by Jean Rabier. English title: THE BREAK UP.


BUY CLAUDE CHABROL MOVIES ON VHS & DVD

© Ron Altman