Vor Einbruch der Nacht

After the commendation of The Unfaithful Wife by film critics and the favorable reactions of the audience, Chabrol decided to return to the proven cast, genre, and subject. Michel Bouquet may have been born as a murderer, and he was perfectly suited for roles of unsympathetic men; but here, the script prescribed him a psychologically demanding role of a man who cannot cope with a guilty conscience. One uncontrolled outburst of emotions will forever change his life and condemn him to the role of a mental wreck tormented by doubts. Traditionally cold and psychologically convincing, Chabrol enriched the film with a grotesque dimension and ingeniously conceived social criticism, which we know, for example, from Buñuel's films. The feeling of guilt leads Masson to confession, which, however, as soon becomes apparent, those around him do not care about at all. In the eyes of his loved ones, a social scandal is apparently less acceptable than murder. It is not important what things objectively are, but how they appear on the surface. Where another director would have made a crime drama, Chabrol presents a psychological study of traditional middle-class values, where the moral dilemma of the (anti)hero clashes with the tough pragmatism and the feignedness taken to a pathological dimension. Overall impression: 75%. (04.12.2013)