Une partie de plaisir (1975) - film review

Philippe and Ester appear to be the perfect couple.   They have been together for eight years and, although they have never married, they have a six year old daughter who is testament to the solidity of their relationship.  Fearful that complacency may one day sour their feelings for one another, Philippe suggests that they should both be free to indulge in extra-marital affairs.  With some reluctance, Ester agrees, but Philippe is unhappy with the man she chooses, an intellectual named Habib.  His increasing jealousy drives Ester away from him and he reacts by hastily marrying an English woman, Sylvia.  Even this fails to bring Philippe peace of mind and he resolves to win Ester back, at any price...

One of Claude Chabrol’s most underrated films, Une partie de plaisir is a surprising departure for a director who is best known for his Hitchcock-style psychological thrillers.  The film offers a portrait of the male-female relationship that is both incisive and disturbing, evoking something of the work of the other great directors of the French New Wave, such as Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, but with an added twist of cruel perversity.  The script was written by Paul Gégauff, who worked on several of Chabrol’s films and who plays the male lead in this film, opposite his ex-wife, Danièle – something which adds a frisson of realism to the proceedings.

The film is essentially an ironic study on the transience of romantic love.  The main character, Philippe, resembles an artist who is constantly striving for perfection in his love life, and is incapable of seeing that his ambition is unattainable.  Rather than accept the minor flaws in his relationship with his partner, Ester, he makes a series of moves that will quickly destroy it.  Not only does he underestimate Ester’s resilience and ability to find love elsewhere, he also fails to recognise in himself the dark passions that will consume him as his scheme backfires.  For Philippe, the ideal woman is immutable, like the waxworks he admires in the Grévin museum, someone he can possess absolutely, and understand implicitly.  In his quest for a sterile perfection, he destroys a living love, as thoughtlessly as a child who plucks flowers, never realising for one moment that for a thing to be unchanging it must first die.  

Une partie de plaisir may not be a thriller, but it is a chilling and compelling work, one of Claude Chabrol’s bleakest films, albeit with a touch of his trademark anti-bourgeois humour.  The realist approach adopted by the director and Paul Gégauff’s intense naturalistic performance lend the film greater impact, making this one of French cinema’s most unsettling depictions of conjugal conflict and obsession.

© James Travers 2008

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