By Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff ReporterTHE FINAL scene of The Flower of Evil is an eloquent summation of what makes the picture fascinating. A throng of people gather in a living room celebrating. The picture of them eating and drinking could be a postcard sent from happiness. However, in one of the rooms above lies a body.
The Flower of Evil is the second film in the Calabash International Literary Festival film series, taking place at the Bob Marley Museum, Hope Road, St. Andrew for the next three weeks. The films are shown on Sunday mornings, The Flower of Evil starting at 11:00 a.m. on May 9.
The French film, shown with English subtitles, is directed by one of France's most acclaimed directors, Claude Chabrol. The Flower of Evil is fascinating because of the ease with which it unfolds. It starts with the murder and then slowly meanders away, gradually easing back to the corpse of the matter.
Then the audience is allowed to see each petal of the rose peeled away to find a core that is infested with insects eating away at each other.
HAPPY TIME
The Flower of Evil shows a few days in the life of the Chapin-Vasseur family. It should be a happy time for the clan, but a few seconds in insidiousness begins to prick through the veneer. The film starts with the return of the son, Francois (Benoît Magimel) from three years in the United States. He returns on the eve of the local elections in which his stepmother, Anne (Nathalie Baye) is running for councillor.
What is intriguing about how the film unfolds is that there is the distinct suggestion that this has all happened before. Three generations of the Chapin-Vasseur family are shown and the inter-relations are astounding.
One generation makes mistakes and the second perpetuates them. The past does not merely echo in this movie; it continues. As Aunt Line says, "life is an eternal present".
For the most part the movie shows the surface plot, with only a few hints of how it is all connected. It's true beauty is that until the end, hardly anything is made obvious. Subtlety is given full reign.
This is created through Chabrol's use of realism in The Flower of Evil. The story is allowed to unfold so organically that one has to follow without having much of a clue as to where exactly it is leading. What could have been taken as a throw-away statement by someone could quickly explain the behaviour of some other character.
INCEST, ADULTERY, MURDER
The film moves slowly and easily throughout. Propelled by unaffected performances, one gets to the climax without much of a fuss. But when it gets there the stories of incest, adultery, murder, patricide and collaborating with the Nazis all collide.
This is one of those movies that one does not realise how good it is until you get to the end. It's a wondrous comment on upper-class society and the ability to overcome adversity by keeping up appearances.
The Flower of Evil runs 104 minutes.
