Inspecteur Lavardin (1986)
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Film Review

The popularity of Poulet au vinaigre (1985) led its director Claude Chabrol to do something he had only ever attempted once before (with his Le Tigre films of the mid-1960s) - to mount an immediate sequel.  Jean Poiret was more than willing to reprise the role for which he is now best known, the unconventional crime investigator Inspector Lavardin.  No doubt too strongly influenced by the Dirty Harry movies of the previous decade, Lavardin sees himself less like an honest seeker of truth and more like an angel of justice, one who is all too willing to intimidate suspects and distort the facts to achieve an outcome which he deems morally correct.  Lavardin's humourless charm and habit of beating up his suspects makes him a striking counterpoint to more genial detectives in the Columbo and Poirot line, but what most sets him apart is his resolve to punish wrongdoers, irrespective of whether they actually committed the crime or not.

Lavardin was among Chabrol's favourite creations, and it is not too hard to see why - he is the director's fictional alter ego to a fault.  Like Chabrol, the Rottweiler detective has an unfettered loathing for the bourgeoisie, particularly that putrid stratum of this refined class that is content to wallow in the most blatant exhibitions of hypocrisy, and like his creator, he takes a sadistic pleasure in exposing these failings, seeing what others cannot see: the rottenness beneath the surface of well-honed sham respectability.  Played with evident relish by Jean Poiret (previously better known for his comedic roles, in films such as Jean-Pierre Mocky's La Grande frousse), Lavardin continued in this vein for another four made-for-television films, in a series entitled Les Dossiers de l'inspecteur Lavardin - two of which were directed by Chabrol: L'Escargot noir (1988) and Maux croisés (1989).
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If Lavardin's abrasive methods were shocking when first encountered in Poulet au vinaigre, in his second screen outing they are downright reprehensible, crossing the line into what is surely flagrant immorality.  Not content merely to bully and bait his bourgeois opponents, Lavardin now sees himself as God, using the murder of a local celebrity as an opportunity to weed out the most malignant member in a Breton community and arrange matters so that this individual is inculpated for a crime of which he is completely innocent (not only that, he also provides the evidence which identifies the real killer!).  The film isn't just a tongue-in-cheek all-out attack on the bourgeoisie, it is also serves as the wriest of commentaries on modern police methods, which all too often start with a presumption of guilt and end with an innocent party (invariably one outside the bourgeois clique) being chewed up by an inherently biased judicial system.

Aided and abetted by his astute co-screenwriter Dominique Roulet, Chabrol gets to kill two birds with one stone - scorning both France's self-serving middle classes and a police institution whose main function would appear to be to protect their interests.  So tangled is the relationship between the moneyed elite and the supposed guardians of law that cock-ups are bound to happen, especially if subversive elements like Lavardin enter the fray. In his attempts to cover up lesser crimes, a supposed pillar of the community - a stomach-turningly slimy Jean-Luc Bideau - provides a jury with all the ammunition it needs to convict him of murder.  The egg-munching Lavardin doesn't have to work too hard to turn a corrupt system against its corrupt beneficiaries.

Bideau's odious nightclub owner Charnet is not the only character to get his just desserts in this slick, meticulously crafted crime drama.  In the sequence leading up to the killing, the murder victim (a Catholic writer of the most offensively sanctimonious kind) is seen undergoing a truly horrific transformation - from a man of unimpeachable morals to a disgusting animal, a slobbering, snorting, lust-consumed pig that totally deserves his brutal end.  The Church is another institution that Chabrol delights in pillorying in this film, giving Buñuel a good run for his anti-clerical money in the almost surreal climax to this delightfully pungent drama.

How Chabrol films this shock revelation is interesting.  It begins with a static overhead shot from a hidden camera, echoing an earlier scene in which Lavardin attempted to reconstruct the murder.  The unseen all-seeing voyeur as an agent of judgement crops up in several of the director's films - none more so than his earlier L'Oeil du malin (1962) - but here it is especially pertinent, incarnated in the form of Lavardin himself, the only character in the film who is capable of seeing, or even willing to see, the truth.  A bizarre collection of glass eyes staring unseeingly at the spectator provides a darkly humorous metaphor for the collective blindness exhibited by the population of a town that refuses to take in what is happening in their crime-ridden community.

Lavardin has most fun when he is badgering his designated victim, but he is no less merciless when it comes to dealing with the lesser characters in the drama, who include the openly gay brother of the woman he once (supposedly) loved and a drug addicted, sexually ambiguous youth with a penchant for blackmail.  The former is played with his customary élan by a long-time friend and collaborator of the director, Jean-Claude Brialy, whose debonair Cary Grant-like charm and carefully cultivated camp eccentricity make him a more than plausible murder suspect.

Brialy starred in Chabrol's first feature (Le Beau Serge, 1958) alongside Bernadette Lafont, so it is a delight to see these two actors, unfading emblems of the French New Wave, reunited as brother and sister in Inspecteur Lavardin,  Lafont's slyly nuanced and understated performance makes her Hélène the only sympathetic character in the film, her purpose being to provide a moral impetus for Lavardin's appalling actions.  As in many previous Chabrol films, the character named Hélène turns out to be the dramatic lynchpin of a muddled intrigue, most often the prime-mover of a savage assault on the kind of bourgeois hypocrisy which the director found so repugnant.  Inspector Lavardin's methods may not be nice to look at, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and this is a man who loves his eggs.  It's a shame he has to concuss so many chefs along the way.

Film Synopsis

In a small town on a drab stretch of the Brittany coastline, the renowned Catholic writer Raoul Mons leads an exemplary life, intent on upholding moral standards in the district.  He leads an austere life, sharing his large secluded house with his wife Hélène, in what is nothing more than a marriage of convenience.  Also living in the house are Hélène's daughter Véronique from a previous marriage and her brother Claude Alvarez, who is an obsessive collector of glass eyes.  Not long after the pious writer prohibits a local theatre company from performing a play which he deems blasphemous, his naked corpse is found lying on the beach, stabbed to death and with the word 'porc' inscribed on his back in red lipstick.

The murder is investigated by Inspector Lavardin, who has recently been transferred to the area after getting into trouble in his previous posting.  Lavardin is delighted to be reunited with Hélène, an old flame of his, but is struck by the odd coincidence that her first husband also died in tragic circumstances, ostensibly drowning in the course of a boating trip which also cost the life of Claude's wife.  In truth, Véronique's father is still alive and well, living in another country with Claude's wife; he returns to the area once a year to meet up with his daughter in secret.

The most likely murder suspect is Max Charnet, the owner of Le Tamaris, a vibrant nightclub which is frequented by all of the young people in the region.  Ignoring Charnet's claims to have contacts in high places, Lavardin persists in harassing him, and soon discovers that he is mixed up in drugs trafficking and prostitution.  The most damning evidence against the entrepreneur is that he provided the murdered writer with a private room where he could entertain young women without his wife's knowledge.  A large bloodstain on the carpet in this room, along with the discovery of the dead man's clothes, would seem to confirm Charnet's guilt, but the sudden appearance of a video cassette showing how Mons met his maker proves otherwise.  Unwilling to see the real murderer punished, Lavardin arranges things so that a more worthy villain is put behind bars...