It's my great misfortune to have discovered Claude Chabrol's films just after he passed away. This means that, once again, I find myself smitten with a ghost. Chabrol is known as the French Hitchcock, and that's pretty apt, really. Much like Hitchcock, Chabrol uses thrillers as a psychological vessel, but with a characteristic that is definitively French. His movies are about feeling more than action, situation more than plot. Hitchcock had the Macguffin; Chabrol needs no excuse to engage in his scenarios of tension. I can't really claim to know much about Chabrol's filmography; I've only just begin. Likewise, I'm no master on Hitchcock, just a would-be diver dipping my toes in the pool. So, I should stick to those films I do know, one of which is Chabrol's 1995 film, La Ceremonie, a truly haunting portrait of class division and resentment. In La Ceremonie, the relationship of a family and their maid slowly becomes toxic, leading to a finale of sudden and irrevocable violence. This film is less of a thriller than a mystery. There is no central puzzle to unravel; the mystery lies in the hearts of the characters themselves.
