Just Before Nightfall (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Just Before Nightfall (1971) – C. Chabrol

It’s rather ghoulish in the end, but Claude Chabrol’s film maintains suspense all the way through – despite the fact that we know that Michel Bouquet is the murderer from the first moments.  Bouquet and Stephane Audran also starred as husband and wife in Chabrol’s earlier, excellent The Unfaithful Wife, and this is something of a reprise or rejoinder.  Audran was Chabrol’s wife at the time and this period of his career saw a lot of exceptional thrillers in the Hitchcockian mode.  Chabrol and Eric Rohmer had earlier written a famous book about Hitch, focusing on his Catholic interest in guilt – and guilt also takes center stage in Just Before Nightfall.  You see, despite no suspicion falling on him, Bouquet just can’t live with himself after the possibly accidental death of his friend’s wife during S&M play. He just wants to blurt out that he’s the killer – this leads to a great deal of suspense.  Somehow, though, you just can’t see that ending coming. But it is entirely consistent with Chabrol’s wicked sense of humor.