Clouzot is possibly the cinema's most devout pessimist: no other director has portrayed human vices so persuasively
If his bitter vision of the world is finally limited and unattractive, his status as a major filmmaker, entertaining through suspense while simultaneously expressing his private dismay with cool and detached visual precision, remains intact
"Les Diaboliques" is a mystery set in a shabby boys' boarding school The plot a sadistic headmaster is murdered by his wife and his mistress; ominously and inexplicably, his corpse vanishes is too contrived to survive repeated viewings, but the stark gray images emphasizing physical decay offer a precise, grimly poetic visual correlative for the characters' warped emotions
Clouzot's moral pessimism, shock tactics and readiness to display man's worst excesses suggest parallels with Hitchcock and Fuller, while his focus on cruelty, domination and decay may be compared with that of figures as diverse as Leone, Blier and Fassbinder
"Les Diaboliques" is a mystery set in a shabby boys' boarding school The plot a sadistic headmaster is murdered by his wife and his mistress; ominously and inexplicably, his corpse vanishes is too contrived to survive repeated viewings, but the stark gray images emphasizing physical decay offer a precise, grimly poetic visual correlative for the characters' warped emotions
Clouzot's moral pessimism, shock tactics and readiness to display man's worst excesses suggest parallels with Hitchcock and Fuller, while his focus on cruelty, domination and decay may be compared with that of figures as diverse as Leone, Blier and Fassbinder