The films of Henri-Georges Clouzot engage me quickly and totally. I don’t mean they pull me in—I mean they open the floor beneath my feet, and I drop.
Down, down; ever swifter, into darkness uncertain. This is my journey as a viewer, and often the characters’ too. It is the journey of the heroines (if heroines they be) of Diabolique: Nicole Horner and Christina Dellasalle, who live and work as teachers at the same boarding school in France. They are involved with the same man, and together, they execute a plot to kill him.
Michel (Paul Meurisse) is the school’s headmaster; Nicole (Simone Signoret) his mistress; Christina (Vera Clouzot) his devoutly Catholic wife. The three of them persist in a triangle created by Michel’s selfishness and inhumanity, dealt equally to both women—who, perhaps because of this, remain friends. Christina is moneyed. It seems unlikely that things will change until Christina dies of the heart condition that afflicts her—or Michel dies of something less natural.
