Without giving too much away, "La Femme Infidèle" is a murder story bookended by two phases of suspicion: a husband's (Michel Bouquet) questioning of his wife's fidelity, and the wife's (Stéphane Audran) realisation that her husband may have committed a crime of passion. What makes the film so special is the novel
concept of murder as a declaration of love, an act of savagery capable of bringing two people closer together rather than blasting them apart: extreme marriage therapy, if you will! The other thing that Chabrol does very well here is to deglamourise the act of murder itself, portraying it as an ugly, sordid business, fraught with complications. Curiously, this generally sombre film lightens considerably when events take a drastic turn, and a healthy dose of darkly comic Hitchcockian suspense is introduced. A brilliant little movie.
April 16, 2008
