Le Cri du hibou (1987)
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Film Review

After the comparatively bland Lavardin crime thrillers of the mid-1980s and the wryly comical Masques, director Claude Chabrol returned in 1987 to the dark psychological thriller genre with which he is probably most closely associated.  That film, Le Cri du hibou, reminds us of the director's earlier successes of the late 1960s, like Le Boucher and Que la bête meure, whilst giving us a foretaste of the gems which were to come (La Cérémonie , Merci pour le chocolat , etc.)

Adapted from a novel by thriller writer Patricia Highsmith, Le Cri du hibou is undoubtedly one of Chabrol's darkest films, and also one of his most compelling and chillingly ambiguous.  Although it received some lousy reviews when it was first released, and has subsequently dipped into comparative obscurity, it really deserves to be ranked as one of the director's better films.

Like his New Wave contemporaries François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol was a great admirer of the English film director Alfred Hitckcock, and this is clearly reflected in many of his films.  The Hitchcock influence is noticeable in virtually every shot of Le Cri du hibou, but Chabrol, to his credit, uses Hitchcockian techniques to embellish rather than drive the film's content.

The voyeuristic camerawork is distinctive Chabrol, in evidence in most of his films, but here it is an essential component of the film, emphasising the distance between the protagonist, Robert, a kind of latter day Great Reaper, and his hapless victims (who have an awkward habit of dropping dead thanks to his unwitting influence).

Impressive acting performances, particularly from Christophe Malavoy and Mathilda May, supplemented by the atmospheric, stylish cinematography, sustain an almost unbearable tension throughout the film, culminating in one of the most horrific and bizarre endings in a Chabrol thriller.  As is the case with many of Chabrol's better works, the film combines the mundane experiences of everyday life with a shockingly surreal streak of the macabre, yet it does this with great subtlety and ambiguity so that we never question what we see.  It is only in the last fifteen seconds of the film that the film departs from the real world and propels us into fantasy, causing us to question our assumptions about everything we have just seen.

The best psychological thrillers tend to leave you with the impression that you have just woken from a bad nightmare.  Le Cri du hibou certainly has that affect - and will probably induce in its spectator many subsequent nightmares, all with a recognisably Chabrolesque thrill...

Film Synopsis

An artist, Robert, moves to Vichy after having separated from his wife, Véronique.  He relieves his depression by spying on a young woman, Juliette, who lives in a house in the countryside with her fiancé Patrick.  One day, Juliette discovers Robert in her garden and invites him into her house.  Although Robert is not looking for an affair, Juliette is drawn to him and contrives to meet him whenever she can.  When he finds out, Patrick goes into a rage and threatens to kill Robert.  One night, the two men get into a fight and Robert knocks his opponent unconscious.  The next day, Patrick has disappeared and the police suspect Robert of killing him.  This news drives Juliette to suicide, but for Robert the nightmare has just begun, as he becomes the target of a mysterious sniper...