Juste avant la nuit (1971)
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Film Review

Juste avant la nuit is another meticulously crafted psychological drama from Claude Chabrol. It is one of his darkest, most introspective works, one which explores a recurring theme in his cinema: the all-consuming need for a criminal to expunge his guilt once he has committed a crime. The irony of this film is that a perfect crime has been committed and the perpetrator would have got way with it if his only his conscience would let him. As in Chabrol's later film, Les Noces rouges, a murderer will remain a prisoner of his guilt until the day he is unmasked and judged for his crime. Only then, can he taste freedom again.

In many ways, this is the mirror image of Chabrol's earlier suspense thriller La Femme infidèle: the two films appear to tell the same story from a totally different perspective.  The similarities are reinforced by Chabrol casting the same lead actors Michel Bouquet and Stéphane in effectively the same roles (again named Charles and Hélène).  As in La Femme infidèle, the plot revolves around a murder which results from marital infidelity.  But from thereon, the two films differ markedly.

In La Femme infidèle, the murder was deliberate and the murderer goes to extreme lengths to avoid capture.   In Juste avant la nuit, the murder is entirely accidental yet it provokes an intense guilt response in the murderer. The irony is that in both cases the murderer, Charles, is tortured by his crime - in the first by fear of being found out, in the second by a guilt which no one can understand.

Whilst Juste avant la nuit allows Chabrol ample scope for exploring some of his favourite themes (such as bourgeois complacency and the darker side of human nature), it is less accesible than La Femme infidèle.  It is, all the same, a compelling and stylishly filmed work, featuring some great acting performances (Michel Bouquet is extraordinary here) and the usual blend of Chabrolesque intrigue, drama and suspense.

Film Synopsis

Charles Masson is a successful advertising executive who has a devoted wife, Hélène, and two adorable children.  He seems to be the model of bourgeois respectability, but he has a dark secret which is slowly eating him up from within.  In the course of one of their passionate love making sessions, Charles murdered his mistress Laure.  After the crime, he went back to his wife as if nothing had happened, but it wasn't long before Charles's guilt began to get the better of him.  It didn't help that Laure was the wife of his best friend, François, who is the last person who would think him capable of murder.

Now, Charles finds that he can no longer bear his guilt.  He is driven to confess to Hélène, both that he was seeing another woman, and then that he killed his secret mistress in a moment of madness.  To his astonishment, Hélène forgives both crimes and does her best to relieve his obvious distress.  This is not the reaction Charles had expected or wished for, so he turns to François and confesses all.  Again, his friend shows sympathy and is ready to let the whole matter drop.  Charles now knows that his only way out of his private hell is make a full confession to the police.  This is not something that Hélène is prepared to let him do...