Having presented the complex pleasures and pains of country life in the first film of the French New Wave Le beau Serge, writer-director Claude Chabrol now reverses himself by picturing the joys and devastations of big city life in Les cousins. He’s not only reversed the settings of his first two films from country to city, but he’s taken his two leading actors from Serge and let them flip personalities for Les cousins. It’s a fascinating juxtaposition of characters and settings and makes for an even more intriguing and bold domestic psychological tragedy than Le beau Serge.
Les cousins (Blu-ray)
Directed by Claude Chabrol
Studio: Criterion
Year: 1959
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 109 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: PCM 1.0 French
Subtitles: English
Region: A
MSRP: $39.95
Release Date: September 20, 2011
Review Date: September 18, 2011
The Film
4/5
Pampered and somewhat smothered mama’s boy Charles (Gérard Blain) comes to complete his law studies in Paris rooming with his cousin Paul (Jean-Claude Brialy). Paul is a party boy, not much interested in serious studies but very interested in the hedonistic friends he’s cultivated while in Paris. Charles, ever the serious student, resists Paul’s temptations to lead him astray, but even his strong will power can’t resist the fetching Florence (Juliette Mayniel). He assumes she’s as innocent and virginal to the ways of the world as he is, but Paul knows she’s actually a girl with an active sexual past, so when he makes the offer for her to become his lover, she quickly accedes thus becoming the first in a stream of disappointments Charles will suffer at the hands of an unfeeling, indifferent Paris and some of its inhabitants.
Les cousins is much bolder in terms of the characters and scope of feelings that are being explored than in the earlier Le beau Serge, and the growing sexual and political freedoms of the upcoming 1960s are already on display here when such subjects as orgies, abortions, suicide, and murder all get treated in a most cavalier way by the filmmaker and his characters. No one blinks an eye when girls go from one guy to the next or a distraught lover takes a leap from a roof, bothersome to his friends only because the group has become bored with so much “drama.” Chabrol once again takes a more formalized view of filmmaking than some of his New Wave compatriots, and his film definitely confines itself to rather traditional structures of narrative and formal film technique. Yet, when the filmmaker does choose to venture outdoors, it’s in a completely delightful sightseeing tour of Paris in a car while zippy jazz riffs play on the soundtrack, one of the film’s most exhilarating (and one of the few happy) moments to be found. Chabrol’s expertly staged party/near-orgy sequence runs for twenty minutes with the camera expertly darting all around the apartment uncovering all kinds of liaisons and increasingly drunken revelry. Chabrol also cleverly shoves the film’s themes in the audience’s faces as a rack of books in a shop window slowly revolves with the titles ironically indicating what’s going on in the world of the film.
If there was any doubt that the two main actors weren’t versatile performers, this film quickly extinguishes that idea from serious consideration. Unlike his brutish, drunken Serge from the previous Chabrol film, Gérard Blain here is the soul of naiveté and quiet studiousness as Charles, the film’s tragic core of innocence corrupted and a brilliant performance. Jean-Claude Brialy gets the showier, extroverted Paul to play, again the antithesis of the character he acted in the earlier Chabrol work. With his thin goatee and leering smirk, he’s practically the devil incarnate in street clothes, his insidious thoughtlessness only minimized by the more outgoing evil of his best friend Clovis (Claude Cerval), surely a man who’s likely a drug dealer or pimp or both whenever he’s off screen. Juliette Mayniel can’t match the versatility of her male co-stars as the wishy-washy Florence though she gives it a valiant effort. Corrado Guarducci has a showcase moment during the party scene as a besotted Mafioso-type looking for a woman for the night while Geneviève Cluny as the former girl friend who thinks she may be pregnant has some good opening scenes though she fades in importance as the film runs.
Video Quality
4.5/5
The film is framed in its theatrical 1.33:1 aspect ratio and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. This is another of Criterion’s immaculate black and white transfers with a pristine image taken from the original camera negative. Whites are gloriously pure without blooming even though black levels never reach their uptmost inky depths. The grayscale in between offers a completely satisfying visual experience with sharpness so acute that the linen weave of Charles’ white shirt can be easily seen in close-ups. The white subtitles are easy to read, and the film has been divided into 20 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The PCM 1.0 (1.1 Mbps) sound mix does contain some soft hiss throughout and a little muffled crackle early on as well. Otherwise, the nicely recorded dialogue, the ambient sounds, and Paul Misraki’s fun score which mixes classical themes with some occasional jazz bits fits well together in this track which represents very much the sound recording of its era.
Special Features
2.5/5
The audio commentary is by film expert Adrian Martin. If one is looking for an overview of Chabrol’s career, this commentary is a good one, but if one wants a specific analysis of this particular film, you’re not going to get it here as Martin only occasionally alludes to what we see on screen keeping most of his comments more general in tone about Chabrol’s career as a whole.
The film’s theatrical trailer runs 4 minutes and is presented in 1080p.
The enclosed 20-page booklet contains cast and crew lists, some wonderful stills from the picture, an astute critique of the movie by film critic Terrence Rafferty, and a fascinating excerpt from one of Jean-Claude Brialy’s memoirs about his personal and professional relationship with fellow actor Gérard Blain.
The Criterion Blu-rays include a maneuvering tool called “Timeline” which can be pulled up from the menu or by pushing the red button on the remote. It shows you your progress on the disc, the title of the chapter you’re now in, and index markers for the commentary that goes along with the film, all of which can be switched on the fly. Additionally, two other buttons on the remote can place or remove bookmarks if you decide to stop viewing before reaching the end of the film or want to mark specific places for later reference.
In Conclusion
4/5 (not an average)
An even more devastating drama than his first New Wave film, Claude Chabrol’s Les cousins is a fine film of its type. While Criterion doesn’t offer a great array of bonus material to supplement this fascinating film, the video and audio on display are very appealing. Recommended!
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
