The Cousins

Black and white, 35 mm
France, 1959, 110 min
Section: Visions of Seven - Youth through the Eyes of French Filmmakers

Synopsis

This film, one of the first to launch the New Wave in France, is dominated by two sharply opposing characters. The villager Charles is a timid introvert and diligent student, whilst his Parisian cousin Paul is a born bon vivant who thinks only of parties and tantalising love affairs. He doesn’t bother with his studies, but still manages to pass his exams, while plodder Charles fails. When he arrives in Paris during the opening scene of the film, Charles gazes, mesmerised, at the colourful city and the bohemian lifestyle of Paul and his entire clique. The atmosphere of this image, however, gradually changes and a sense of apprehension starts to build up. Charles’s prospects of love, friendship and his law diploma turn into a series of crushing defeats. Paul’s flat, which at first seemed a refuge full of hope, finally becomes a nightmarish trap from which there is no escape.

About the director

Claude Chabrol (b. 1930, Paris) is one of the founders of the French New Wave. His very first films demonstrated that he already had a sense for the clear psychological depiction of his characters and for the dramatic, increasing tension in his stories. This soon turned him away from the existential films cultivated by his colleagues and led him to specific genres, in particular detective films and psychological, political and socio-critical thrillers. Chabrol’s tales may appear as mysterious dramas without a broader social context, but the director merely avoids ideology, instead preferring to examine the mentality and lifestyle of various social strata. Films (selection): Bitter Reunion (1958), The Butcher (1969), Dirty Hands (1975), The Blood of Others (1984), A Judgement in Stone (1995).