The Breach (1970) User Reviews

Chabrol's attack on the bourgeoisie disguised as a thriller

[debblyst · 8/10 · 14 May 2005]

The plot: Charles (Jean-Claude Drouot) is a tentative writer with a drug problem who goes berserk and attacks his own wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran) and their baby boy in a rage fit (in yet another of those amazing Chabrol opening sequences!). Hélène files for divorce and custody of their child, but Charles' wealthy father Régnier (Michel Bouquet) is ready to fight dirty for the boy's custody: Régnier promises money and a job to shady Paul Thomas (Jean-Pierre Cassel) if he can find out nasty things about Hélène. As Paul tries hard but fails to find skeletons in Hélène's closet, he begins to scheme foul plans to do her in. But things go terribly wrong.

"La Rupture" (1970) is a study about misleading appearances and the destructive power of money and of social conventions. In the film, conventions play a very important part: Hélène used to be a stripper so people assume she's something of a whore, which she wasn't and isn't. Régnier is a rich and respectable bourgeois, but ready to play dirty to have things his own way. Paul is seductive, funny and good-looking, so everybody likes him -- even Hélène -- though he is rotten to the core.

The film belongs to a very rich period in Claude Chabrol's career, including "Les Biches" (1968), "Une Femme Infidèle" (1969) and "Le Boucher" (1970), all of them Hitchcockian in surface but much darker, more violent and tragic, rather closer to Fritz Lang in core, acid criticism and virulent spirit. These four films portray Chabrol's perennial (self)-criticism on the French bourgeoisie, while dealing with apparently "normal" characters going berserk (Jean-Claude Drouot here, Jacqueline Sassard in "Les Biches", Jean Yanne in "Le Boucher", Michel Bouquet in "Une Femme Infidèle"). They all star his then-wife, beautiful, fascinating Stéphane Audran, here in a terrific performance, whose detached acting style, world-weary heavy-lidded eyes, fabulous legs, peerless cheekbones and deceptively cold sexiness is only comparable to the 1930s Dietrich.

In "La Rupture", not everything in the plot strives to be "believable" - this is not the standard Hollywood thriller! It's rather a tragedy with surrealistic overtones and a very black sense of humor. To fully enjoy it, one must forget about "plot logic" and marvel at the rich character study, particularly of the main trio (Hélène, Régnier, Paul) but also the supporting characters depicting the "evil ways" of human nature (Régnier's wife; the three MacBethian "witches" who live at the pension; the understanding lawyer; the pension landlady and her alcoholic husband played by the great Jean Carmet; Paul's nymphomaniac girlfriend etc). What is refreshing with "La Rupture", as in Chabrol's best movies, is that things never happen the way we expect them to - there's always a welcome offbeat element waiting around the corner.

Don't watch this film if you only like thrillers with Cartesian logic, lots of action and gunshots; but do watch this if you like to see an experienced, talented filmmaker in full power of his craft who, though dealing with a below par material (the novel on which the film is based), manages to make a virulent attack on social conventions while thoroughly entertaining you. PS: The final scene may be too symbolic, psychedelic and "loose" for some tastes -- but that was 1970, folks!

Totally Subversive And Profound

[nin-chan · 8/10 · 11 September 2007]

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

Ruptured

[sol- · 6/10 · 18 April 2016]

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.

Regnier-Thomas-Chabrol

[jcappy · 7/10 · 4 April 2008]

"La Rupture" (unsurpassed credit montage), serves as a glimpse, through two despicable characters, at masculinity unleashed, but at the same time its director, problematically--for him and the viewer, aligns himself with that same force.

Monsieur Regnier and Paul Thomas, the rich man and the player, as a team, are in-- in the specific sense the film presents--the flush of power, their capacity for deception and violence unmitigated. Up against an array of very restricted lives, the romance of evil that surrounds them seems to be further amplified. Chabrol has a similar boundless power over these characters, but his is not expressed so openly, but is rather written into his style, language, and camera work, each of which can be impoverishing and disparaging. (It is not Mr. Regnier & Thomas, after all, who turn Emilie and Paul's mate into sexed items for the viewers pleasure or displeasure).

Interesting that all the characters under the thumb of these convergent men are a group of insignificants who are either female or aligned with the female world, and with whom, despite their low status and victimization, Chabrol only occasionally sides. The actor boarder can be brave, and of course Helene can and does have a complex inner life and a defiant spirit (one albeit that's too costly) Yet, even she seems almost permanently glazed over, distressed, and exhausted. And her endless mothering of son and husband, while performing as a barmaid and being stalked--and drugged, is not exactly an argument for an independent identity.

But look at the meager others. All live in a tiny sphere which amounts to a hospital lobby and a constrictive gray boarding house in Brussels. The doctor is no more than a bit actor in a play, entering and exiting his scenes on cue. The landlady is portrayed as a puritanical prude, who inflexibly rules her cloistered hotel in the manner of a mother cop. Her husband is the stereotypical castrated husband, small in stature, reclusive, passive, unable (and unwilling) to stand up to his daunting wife. Emilie, their learning-disabled limp daughter is an uncomfortably overlarge doll in a disarrayed white dress and showy glasses, who might be more appropriate to a porn factory and who ends up pornified in the end. No doubt we are instructed to think of her as the sole offspring of her anti-sex mother. Thomas' over-sexed playmate has label written all over her--the woman who can't get enough, who is so lusty and lusting that the thought of dressing never occurs to her--over more than a few camera visits. The three old women--or witches here--are not the three graces of Joyce's "The Dead." They are rather laughable loners who are much less primordial witch than dried up card-playing spinsters stringently served up as the three-witches symbol. Finally, Helene's husband is no more than a kind enraged distortion let loose on the world by his power-mongering and greedy father, which in turn aligns him here with the female camp--making him vulnerable onto death.

In short, Chabrol exercises little vigilance or care for his characters. The undercurrents of hostility and misogyny have a kind of cumulative effect of manipulation and point to a lack of directorial integrity. His characters need more interiority and less violation. Hiding behind style, chicness, specious symbols, and technique doesn't cut it. I think a less heavy had and a less heavy mind is in order.

A second look at "la rupture".

[dbdumonteil · 9/10 · 17 October 2001]

"La rupture" might be the best Chabrol.I've recently seen it and I think it has improved a lot with time,more than any other movie of the Chabrol 1967-1973 heyday,even more,in several respects,than "le boucher" or "que la bête meure".Completely overlooked,there is a lot of Chabrol fans that don't even know the existence of "la rupture",and the critic-when they know it - has always been condescending.

Why is it the best Chabrol?Because it has almost everything that we find in the director's other works:love,suspense,bourgeoisie contempt,mystery,humor-mostly black-,and even surrealism.Two influences are glaring as far as"la rupture" is concerned: Alfred Hitchcock 's(the actor,telling the heroine that the world is a dirty place recalls Uncle Charlie in "shadow of a doubt")and Henri-George Clouzot's(the boarding house recalls "l'assassin habite au 21")

The main topic is the power of money;never Chabrol has been as convincing as here.Michel Bouquet,the accurate prototype of a French bourgeois circa 1970 is terrifying.He's got a wallet by way of heart and he stalks his daughter-in-law as a spider on its web,to get the custody of his grandson.When Audran ,desperate,comes back from the airport,two scenes pack a real wallop:the first one shows the reunited couple,desperately trying to pick up the pieces,whereas they know they are bound to fail.Audran and Drouot are harrowing and the spectator wish they could get out of this money pigpen.A second scene,just following this one,shows Audran telling her contempt to the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.Chabrol is actually speaking out here,and his voice has never been so devastating.

There 's a lot of subplots and never a Chabrol supporting cast has been so important.He achieves a real tour de force:every character is interesting,be it the owner of the boarding-house,her alcoholic husband,her retarded daughter,the three old ladies,the villain (Machiavellian Jean Pierre Cassel),his nymphomaniac accomplice,the good doctor....

Money allows very bad things,the right to pervert an innocent child is not the least.The scenes between the villains and Elise,the poor idiot have a contemporary feel .Money allows the over-possessive mother(an Hitchcockian influence again) to pick up her beloved child (in his thirties!), to read him "the knights of the round table",and to poison him with protection.Money allows to tarnish a brave mother's reputation when she makes her best to cope with her plight.

The movie eventually drags down the whole cast for an astounding finale,complete with drugs,deaths,hallucinations (a bit dated,admittedly)and the balloon release comes as a relief.

Stephane Audran ,more than 15 years before "babette's feast" is wonderfully cast as a mother who 's got to fight for her child and her honor.Her beauty radiates in this filthy world.Once again,"la rupture "

contains whole everything that Chabrol had done before and heralds the best that he has done since.It deserves to be restored to favor.

NB:It's superior to Charlotte Armstrong's "balloon man" which provided the story.All the names but one (Sonia)were Frenchified,Sherry becoming Helene.

Clouzot-ian thriller succeeds in part yet contains misfires and miscasting

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 6/10 · 11 October 2009]

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.

An almost Dickensian study of evil

[MOscarbradley · 9/10 · 29 June 2013]

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.

Frankly, a disappointment

[pha96lgc · 24 March 2000]

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.

Chabrol lost it half way through

[phuckracistgop · 6/10 · 17 March 2024]

This movie was decent until half way through and than the script went south with the hairbrained plot to set up the woman by drugging the mentally impaired daughter of the boarding house.

There was no plausible way that this idiotic plan would fool anyone other than the daughter. And why didn't the starving actor just provide the alibi that he was with Helene at the hospital during the time that the daughter was gone? It's like these writers either had a brain fart, or they think that the viewing audience is too stupid to keep up with what is going on.

Also the drunken father would have told that Helene wasn't the one he left watching over the daughter. There is no film projector in Helene's room, so how would she have shown the girl these X-rated movies.

Plus one of the old women was on to the fact that Paul was not sick at all, and add the doctor who told Helene that Paul was not a patient at the hospital. But some of these reviewers must have watched a different movie, or they paid little attention to the obvious.

Not just that, but after Helene found out about Paul Thomas and refused his invitation for a ride to the airport. Why would she want to sit next to him for breakfast and how did the LSD that was in the candy dissolve quickly enough not to be seen in the orange juice?

Add twice when the three old ladies could have called the police on Paul, but they did at least accompany Helene to the park to keep an eye on her.

So where Chabrol got the reputation of being a good director is beyond me, because he had a decent plot and blew it with childish stupidity.

featuring the best"acid" hallucinations on film!

[pyamada · 10/10 · 19 November 2002]

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.

Brilliantly realised commentary on the darker side of human nature - Chabrol's masterpiece!

[The_Void · 9/10 · 24 March 2008]

Of all the great films that Claude Chabrol made; The Breach is one of the most often praised, and that is not surprising at all as this film sees the great French director at the absolute top of his game and deserves every good word said about it! As ever with Chabrol, what we have here is a film that thrills on the surface but has much more going on beneath it. The characters are undoubtedly the most important thing about the film; and the director ensures that each one is brought to life effectively and believably, and this ensures that the film's many substantial points can come through. The film begins with a surreal sequence that could be something out of a zombie movie, as we see a dishevelled man emerge from the bathroom in just a robe and proceed to attack his wife Hélène. His attention soon moves on to the small boy and after putting the kid in hospital, the wife decides to file for a divorce. However, things are not so simple as her husband's father happens to be one of the richest and most powerful men in town, so he won't let Hélène take his grandson from him without a fight...and hires the immoral Paul Thomas to dig up some dirt on Hélène.

The film doesn't contain a great deal of excitement in the common thriller sense, but Chabrol keeps his audience on the edge of their seats by way of the characters and the atmosphere. The film centres on a boarding house and the people that live there; and the interaction between them makes up the bulk of the film. The main theme on display is an attack against the rich; this comes through plainly and obviously through the character of Ludovic Régnier; a man who has enough money to always get what he wants and not care about who gets trampled in the process. The outlook of the film is very bleak all round and Chabrol seems keen to show the dark side of human nature as much as possible. The central plot line, which involves a man trying to prove that an upstanding woman is an unfit mother by any means necessary, is very bleak in the way it plays out. As ever with Chabrol, the acting is excellent and he has put together a great cast here that includes his then wife and frequent muse, the beautiful Stéphane Audran in the lead role and a support cast that features superb performances from the likes of Jean-Pierre Cassel and Michel Bouquet. The film has a very unique style that fluctuates throughout; as mentioned, the first five minutes or so almost seem like something out a zombie movie and then it moves into more familiar Chabrol territory before changing again for the climax as the director gives us a very strange and striking hallucination sequence. Overall, this is an excellent thriller that comes highly recommended and I may even rate it as Chabrol's best.

Cleverer than thou, yet basically garbage

[oliver-177 · 4/10 · 25 October 2008]

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.

Another strong film from Chabrol and Audran

[Red-Barracuda · 8/10 · 18 August 2015]

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.

A Masterpiece of Human Cruelty and Sordidness

[claudio_carvalho · 10/10 · 3 February 2011]

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

A must for Chabrol fans.

[suspira78 · 8/10 · 17 February 2000]

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 BREACH (Claude Chabrol, 1970) ***1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 9/10 · 20 June 2010]

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).

the first 75% is fantastic, the last 25% is pretty much crap

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 12 February 2006]

While watching this film, I found myself really hooked. I liked the plot about a woman who is divorcing her violent drug-addicted husband and his rich parents' evil plot to take their grandson. This was very compelling and fascinating--especially when, for the sake of their own egos, they are willing to fabricate a case against the poor mother in order to get "their property". And, the scumbag guy who insinuates himself in her life in order to create evidence she is an unfit mother is a wonderful plot device. Unfortunately, when the movie reached its climax, it very quickly ran out of steam and the realism went out the window. Now, instead of believable machinations, there was a completely inane segment about molesting a retarded woman and blaming the mother, slipping LSD into the lady's orange juice and a final showdown that comes completely out of no where between the violent (but repentant) husband and the sleazy guy trying to frame the lady. None of this made any logical sense and the only thing I liked about the final portion at all was how smart the heroine acted when she was called out on a wild goose chase--telling the cabbie "look at me and remember my face" so she could provide an alibi about where she was. If the movie were re-filmed and the final section re-done, it could have been magnificent. As is, it's a movie you might as well skip.

well-crafted suspense thriller

[myriamlenys · 8/10 · 30 November 2019]

A young man from a rich family goes bohemian and marries a young woman whose checkered background includes a job as an exotic dancer. Over the years the couple evolves in a somewhat unexpected direction : the woman turns into a douce and responsible mother, while the man becomes a weak, self-pitying addict. One day, the father attacks his young son in a fit of rage. For his spouse, this means the end of the marriage. However, her snooty in-laws are not about to let her leave gracefully...

An adaptation of Charlotte Armstrong's "The balloon man", "La rupture" is a well-crafted thriller about an unsuspecting woman who gets caught up in a web of intrigue and deceit. Some of the characters may stray into caricature territory, but the plot itself is well-constructed, with clever twists and turns. The finale itself is pretty satisfying. The woman protagonist in question (a good performance, by the way) is none other than Stéphane Audran, in one of her more positive roles. Audran, who had a strong and sensual beauty, was very good at suggesting a smoldering decadence : do watch some of her other performances.

The movie - and I'm not going to surprise you here - treats themes of class and power. It is profoundly critical of those pseudo-respectable people who confuse wealth with goodness and who try to smear, bully and remove those unlucky enough to stand in their way. (You'll notice that the judgmental father-in-law, who goes on and on about decency and probity, is not above hiring an "agent provocateur" of exceptional vileness.)

"La rupture" also dissects and condems the way in which some families go looking for a scapegoat, such as a warmly disliked daughter-in-law. Most lawyers, social workers and psychiatrists will be familiar with the phenomenon : two solemn grey-haired people sitting side by side on the sofa and declaring that their Leo or their Patrick would have been perfectly sane and good, but for the Jezebel who led him astray. And it's no use pointing out, say, that Leo torched a car at age 17 and attacked a policeman at age 19 ; no, it's his wife, that vicious harlot, who introduced him to a life of chaos and crime... It's a convenient defence mechanism, which allows the parents to deny any ownership in their offspring's troubles while finding a target for their pent-up anger and frustration.

I did not particularly like the music, but I did like the colour scheme and overall art direction. Both gave the movie a slightly surreal air, like a fairytale going to the dogs.

An entertainment

[edgeofreality · 9/10 · 14 December 2020]

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.

Truss Me, I'm A Cynic

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 27 October 2008]

By and large I can take or leave Chabrol but he has made a lot of films with Isabelle Huppert which is more or less how and why I began watching his stuff. Apparently he had a 'rich' period around 1970 give or take a year or so either way and this entry was right at the heart of it. If he has a schtick it is subjecting small-town/suburban France to a powerful microscope and this is no exception for we are offered a microcosm of a decadent French society as seen through Chabrol's jaded eyes complete with three symbolic witches a la Macbeth. In terms of plot a man, heavily under the influence of LSD attacks his wife and child. She sues for divorce. His wealthy father moves heaven and earth to gain custody of the child. Virtually everyone is dirty. Forget a happy ending. Stephane Audran is excellent. What can I tell you.

Slooooow-burning drama

[gridoon2024 · 5/10 · 6 March 2010]

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.

Why the rave reviews ?

[jromanbaker · 4/10 · 11 April 2018]

I like Chabrol's early work but he is not the very great film director he is made out to be. Without Hitchcock and Clouzot this film would not have existed. He tones down and sometimes exceeds the pessimism of Clouzot while upping the sensationalism of the more sensational Hitchcock films. 'La Rupture' is the apotheosis of this excess.

As a gay reviewer I cannot condone his vulgar and distasteful representation and exploitation of lesbianism, nor his stereotyped and exploitative representation of a person with learning difficulties and the linking of these two in a frankly disgusting scene of sexual abuse (yes, hetero males read and learn). Nor can I respond to the utter brutality towards the child at the beginning of the film, nor the husband being killed in such an atrocious way at the end. He had psychological problems that Chabrol did not have the maturity to explore.

Audran performs to perfection as usual, unlike the rest of the cast. As for the mental state into which her character is placed at the end of the film, it compares with what Clouzot did at the end of his appalling film 'La Prisonniere'.

There are also in my opinion too many characters, and it is far too long. Towards the so called climax, anything can happen. There is no inexorable logic and any sensationalist ending could 'work'.

With the so-called lover of the Cassel character, Chabrol not only debases lesbians but women full stop!

A hateful film, illuminated by Audran who seems as remote from it all as the balloons rising into the sky. I give the film four for her, but still worry about the high ratings given by other reviewers as it shows people actually relate to this debasement.

Something of a cropper for a great director

[jandesimpson · 17 April 2016]

As my purpose in writing these reviews is primarily to impart enthusiasm for films I greatly admire, I have little taste or time for rushing into print over ones that fall far short of outstanding. Let me say at the outset that I am a great admirer of Claude Chabrol at his best, I will go even further and claim that the trilogy of works he directed in 1969 and 1970, "La Femme Infidele", "Que la Bete Meurt" and "Le Boucher", dark, mesmerising yet compassionate explorations of disturbed human psyche, are among the crowning treasures of French cinema. I suppose the problem with Chabrol was that he was so prolific. Good as some of his later films were such as "La Ceremonie" and "Une Affaire de Femmes" he never again scaled those earlier heights. There are potboilers galore, mostly fairly watchable, though disappointing when one thinks of the past greatness of their creator. What to make though of "La Rupture", surely the most bizarrely outlandish of those far too many disappointments? A formidably wealthy grandfather (the most over-the-top of Chabrol's many swipes at the bourgeoisie) will go to any extreme to wrest control of his grandson from the boy's morally impeccable mother even though the youngster has sustained a serious head injury by his drug-ridden son, the boy's father. Next move to hire a shady layabout with a nymphomaniac girlfriend to trump something up that will prove the mother morally unfit to have custody of the boy. What better than to get girlfriend to dress up as mum, then for both of them to kidnap the mentally handicapped daughter of his and mum's landlady, feed the girl with drugged sweeties that will enable her to respond with pleasurable excitement to a depraved movie. To give this nonsense a semblance of artistic credence a mysterious balloon seller pops up from time to time in the local park suggesting some sort of symbolism and Pierre Jansen's atonal score punctuates the action with an aura of awesomeness that suggests something disturbing could be about to happen. Why am I bothering with all this? Simply to counter the many user reviews that express the view that "Le Rupture" is one of Chabrol's finest works. Its character types, the goodies - mother, the hospital doctor and the good-natured lawyer, the baddies - grandfather, the layabout and the layabout's girlfriend, the sillies - the card-playing elderly biddies and the histrionic actor in the guest house are all two- dimensional. All are light years away in depth from the husband driven by love and jealousy to act as he does in "La Femme Infidele", the bereaved father seeking some form of consolation in home movies of happy days past in "Que la Bete Meure" and the eponymous butcher whose love of the school teacher is heartrendingly impossible to reach any fruition given his background; reminders of the greatness Chabrol could be capable of achieving. In these he had something uniquely special to say about the nature of love.