|
Diabolique 1955 ★★★★
Thursday, I enjoyed one of the perks of this website: Getting a notice when something pops up one of your preferred streaming sites. Movie for the night immediately picked.
Fair warning: this is a slow burn. The first act is entirely used to set up the atmosphere leading up to the murder. Which, in a way, should ring in fact more true with a generation that throws around words like psychological abuse. So it kind of surprises me to hear people call this boring. Even more than the previous generations, they would/should be able to relate to the wife and her position.
From there, we get a Hitchcockian thriller about two women who are pushed to the edge and then strike back, in the process taking out the cause of their misery. The murder scene itself is tension filled with the wife having second thoughts and the husband sealing the deal with his own abusive behaviour.
We then get to their plan to hide the body with an odd mix between suspense (the blood drips) and “comic relief” (the radio quiz couple and by extension perhaps the drunk). The weird things that start happening. The widow now seemingly breaking down and the mistress taking charge. Thus reinforcing an interesting dynamic between the two of them.
THE scene that everyone remembers still stands like a house, though the ensuing twist makes the whole plan rather convoluted and lose some credibility.
Still fours stars, though.
__________________
|