Dir: Claude Chabrol | France, Drama 95’
Claude Chabrol’s Violette Nozière (1978) is a French psychological drama based on the true story of a young woman convicted of poisoning her parents in 1930s Paris.
Through a series of flashbacks and a consummate art of the ellipsis, the film recounts Violette’s troubled life as she secretly spends her nights hanging around bars, grappling with her feelings of entrapment and her growing resentment towards her parents (Stéphane Audran and Jean Carmet). Violette Nozière contains the director’s signature mix of social satire, fraught family dynamics and psychological depth.
As inscrutable Violette, young Isabelle Huppert gives her first chilling performance in a Chabrol film. It marks the beginning of a gripping cinematic collaboration between Huppert and Chabrol that led them to investigate the opacity of the human psyche and/or evil across three decades and seven films.
CLAUDE CHABROL SERIES | CINEMA LUMIERE LONDON SW7| Jan-February 2025