Made in 1971, ‘Juste avant la nuit‘ (translated to English as ‘Just Before Nightfall’) was made towards the end of a very productive period in the career of French director Claude Chabrol. Since 1969 he had directed at least two films a year and, most remarkably, almost all of them were good. Whether they were original scripts or adaptations (‘Juste avant la nuit‘ was based on a 1951 novel by the Lebanese-Basque writer Edouard Atiyah), the stories in his films are mostly set in the affluent social circles of the French society. There are murders, or the plots evolve into murders, but these are not detective stories. What interested Chabrol was not creating charades that would put the minds of the viewers to work, but bringing up the relationships between the characters, with more amoral than moral love stories, and their consequences. The thrill element is there, but it is not due to the fact that the spectators do not know who the murderer is.
‘Juste avant la nuit‘ begins with the description of a crime. We know who the murderer is and we will soon understand that he will probably never be caught. Charles Masson, co-owner of an advertising firm, is having an extramarital affair with the wife of his best friend and neighbor, François Tellier. During a meeting, he strangles his mistress, an amateur of ‘love games’. He leaves the scene of the crime and is not even suspected. However, his remorses catch up with him and the psychological pressure puts everything he has at risk – his career, his family (he is married, he has two children and a wife who understands him and backs him to the hilt) and his friendship with François. A kind of ‘Crime and Punishment’, if you will, whose setting is Paris and Versailles of the 70s.
Michel Bouquet, the actor who plays the main role, had specialized at that time in the roles of corrupt politicians, characters from the big bourgeoisie or police commissioners investigating complicated cases. His performing style, with a seemingly expressionless figure that hides an intense thought by masking and burying the feelings inside, perfectly suits the role of Charles Masson. His partner, as the wife seemingly able to forgive anything to protect her family and social status, is played by Stéphane Audran, Chabrol‘s wife and favorite actress at the time. The triangle of main characters is completed by François Périer who plays the role of the victim’s husband, a friend of the Masson couple. One of the key scenes, lasting several minutes, brings together the killer and his friend, the victim’s husband, in a single-frame, front-on, with the two characters walking into the darkness. It is a magnificent example of the application of New Wave principles, which Chabrol brought and refined into his ‘film noir’ cinematography. ‘Juste avant la nuit‘ has successfully crossed over 50 years since its release and deserves to be watched or re-watched as one of the achievements of his career.