The main reason I checked this film out of the library was Madeleine Robinson, a wonderful actress who was popular in the late thirties/early forties and seemed on the verge of a breakthrough to the ranks of Signoret, Darrieux, Feuilliere, Arletty etc but somehow never quite made it despite being in regular work for several more decades. Here she is standout and a worthy winner of the Best Actress Volpi she won at Venice. She is, in fact, head and shoulders above the over-heated 'Southern Gothic' in all but name mish-mosh that Chabrol concocted for his third film and first - as reviewers are lining up to tell us - in color. Rather than the vastly over-rated Hitchcock, to whom he is constantly compared he seems to have sought inspiration in everyone from William Faulkner to Carson McCullers to William Stryon for his dysfunctional family, a sort of dime-store Snopes clan. The New Wave, that shameful blot that stained momentarily French cinema, was still clinging on though visibly ebbing and Chabrol, credited with being in at the birth, couldn't wait to distance himself from it and with that in mind he turns back toward the Grand Guignol. Apart from Robinson, who leaves everyone else dead in the water, the rest of the cast get credit for turning up and that's about it. Bernadette Lafont would forever be associated with the New Wave, Belmondo comes on like a prototype for the Benoit Magimals, Romain Duris's of modern cinema and that's the best you can give it. Worth watching for Robinson.
Review of Web of Passion
