Pleasure Party is yet another offering from the great Claude Chabrol that puts it's central focus on the director's all time favourite subject; that being infidelity. The director has explored this topic previously in films such as The Unfaithful Wife and Wedding in Blood (among others), but Pleasure Party stands out because it's an overall much darker tale than what went before, and may well be a contender for Chabrol's all time darkest film. The film really is not much fun at all to watch, but I would liken it to a car crash - the similarity being the fact that it's difficult to take your eyes off what you're seeing, despite perhaps wanting to. The plot focuses on married couple Philippe and Esther who live with their young daughter Elise. After an awkward conversation one day in which Philippe admits infidelity, it is decided (mostly from his side) that they should see other people as well as each other. It's not long before this plan backfires in spectacular fashion as Ester meets Habib and Phillipe becomes very jealous of their relationship...Despite the ugly plot, in typical Chabrol fashion; the film is very nice to look at, which offsets the tone of the film nicely. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and as ever, the director pulls good performances out of all his lead performers. Paul Gégauff may not quite have the screen presence of Jean Yanne or Michel Bouquet, but the character fits him like a glove and I really cant see anyone else in the role. His wife, Danièle Gegauff, plays second fiddle somewhat to her co-star, but also puts in a very good and believable performance. The film really all centres on the leading man, which isn't surprising since the actor is also the scriptwriter. Everything about the story flows from his character and the film is actually more about his ego and need to control his wife than it is about infidelity. The film does not feature shocks and thrills - rather it is a continual and intense grinding down of the audience as we witness the lead character self destruct, become a shadow of himself, and take down everyone around him. Pleasure Party is not one of Chabrol's best films; but it's an undoubtedly interesting movie from one of France's premier film directors.

Phew! Well, this is certainly no bundle of fun. What an ugly film, was my first thought as I stared at the closing credits. As a seasoned film fan, one is always put on guard when a male lead tells his partner that she should experiment with sleeping with other people. He would not be jealous - oh yea! But here things go from bad to really awful and as someone else has noted it is almost inconceivable that one would be likely to choose to revisit this little number. Having said all that, to discover than long time Chabrol script writer, Paul Gegauff, not only wrote this nasty piece but plays the male lead in question. Not only that but his real life wife plays the appallingly treated partner AND that their actual daughter, plays their screen daughter, just about the only light relief this movie has. Hard to recommend to non Chabrol fans but certainly a powerful piece of cinema.

OK, it's clear that this isn't a "great movie". It has some kind of tabloid energy that connects it to films by a director like Fuller. And it's committed to a very raw kind of amateurism that, as far as I know, is unique in Chabrol's oeuvre. The main actor was Chabrol's main screenwriter (Paul Gegauff), who also performs (with Chabrol's son) the 4-hand piano music used throughout the film (well, there is a one - pianist Schubert Impromptu at a key point). The couple and kid are a real-life couple and kid. And so on. This all lends a special intensity to the film but it also creates a lack of nuance. But I find that this energy corresponds to a certain experience I have (via my parents) of a marriage marked by emotional battering better than more nuanced films do. I wish Chabrol would have figured out a way to combine this rawness with his usual suavity in later films. Instead we end up with tired style exercises like Merci Pour Le Chocolat (although he really captures Swiss-ness in that film, I have to admit). Chabrol has a little trick, which I don't love, of adding some "surreal" element to his films right near the end. In this film, it's the veil as symbol of death. My girlfriend said "5 people couldn't pull him off her?" She didn't know that there's this kind of suspension near the end of many Chabrols. Anyway, I want to point out how Woody Allen seems to have stolen the 2 crab sequences for Annie Hall (the lobster sequences). In the 1st, the wife has an annoying fear of the crab. In the second, on the same beach, the new wife is masterful with the crab, and this makes Gegauff miss the 1st wife's now - endearing fear. Check it out.

Although from his great mid-period of domestic murder mysteries, UNE PARTIE DE PLAISIR is closer to Chabrol's later L'ENFER in its study of repressive, destructive male egotism. This virtually plotless film is almost impossible to watch, as we follow an unappealing, 'cultivated', bully humiliate and grind down his lover. His dictating of her life and sexual activity is a sublimation of his flagging power as he reaches middle-aged impotence. Engimatic treatment of class and professional status too.Very much like Varda's LE BONHEUR, as a real-life couple in charming pastoral settings set to civilised classical music play out nasty fable. Whether the story turns into a Bressonian study of redemption is unclear.