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Based on the future Poet Laureate Cecil Day Lewis s 1938 novel The Beast Must Die , this is one of Claude Chabrol s most acutely observed psychological thrillers, ranking alongside Le Boucher or his Ruth Rendell adaptation A Judgement in Stone. When his beloved son dies in a particularly callous hit-and-run accident, children s author Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy) reacts the way most of us would when the police are unable to help: he resolves to track down the perpetrator himself and exact summary justice, while working out his conflicted thoughts both on the soundtrack and in his diary. But the further his investigation progresses, the more complex the situation becomes, to the point of making him seriously question whether to go through with his crime. But suppose someone else wanted to kill the driver, for a wholly different reason? And what if Thenier s diary was then found by the police?
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A masterful film --Time Out
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Beast Must Die,
By
This review is from: Que La Bete Meure [1969] [DVD] (DVD)
'Que la Bete Meure' is one of the French director Claude Chabrol's finest films. It's a revenge thriller with some very off balance, memorable moments and is, throughout, made with dazzling skill and virtuosity. The original source text was in fact an old fashioned English crime novel, 'The Beast Must Die' by Nicholas Blake, a pseudonym for a former poet laureate.Chabrol is often said to be 'The French Hitchcock' because the old man is clearly his greatest influence, and both often deal in their films with murder in the middle classes. This film is a good example of that, as it follows the attempts of a man driven by rage at the death of his young son to track down the killer himself, and kill him. 'Que la Bete Meure' is a taut thriller for much of the time, drawing the viewer in and sweeping them along with the tension of the pursuit, but towards the end it becomes very strange and enigmatic. Coincidences pile up and motivations become less and less clear, and everything - camerawork and music in particulat - contributes to the sheer oddness. By the time the Brahms piece at the conclusion adds further comment on what we've watched, nothing is certain anymore. A rewatchable and very assured thriller, this one deserves to be rediscovered now that it has been re-released on DVD. Unpredictable and highly recommended.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
And the man too must die,
By
This review is from: Que La Bete Meure [1969] [DVD] (DVD)
I have lost count of the times I have watched this film. Death comes early in the film and seems to have emotionally hollowed out most of the characters almost from the moment that the locals see the corpse (no-one runs). The old housekeeper alone is allowed emotion in public, the grieving father becomes an unduly calm seeker of revenge. Like all Chabrol films the personalities are but part of the picture, there is always a good plot. In Que La Bete Meure they run in tandem. The father must track down and find the killer. He does so with a complete lack of concern about whom he hurts in passing. Then he must plot how he may kill him in return.
The arrival of the revanchist at the home of the killer finds an entire household similarly hollowed out by hatred of the killer. Indeed the killer seems often to be the only person alive. Complications arise with the son of the killer and there are some excellent plot twists until, finally, the original death is joined by others - still with hardly any emotion. A good plot, excellent characters and a very good line in conversation. This is a fine film, but it is never about making anyone feel good.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Watchable. but opportunities missed,
By Humpty Dumpty (Wall St, Upton Snodsbury) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Que La Bete Meure [1969] [DVD] (DVD)
I find the quality of Chabrol's work very variable, not only from film to film but also within an individual movie. He is so prolific that I wonder whether the project for a film is almost more important to him than the finished article. This might explain a certain perfunctoriness that overcomes him in a number of his films. Or maybe his attention span just has certain limits.
So it is that in my view there are features to admire in Que La Bete Mere as well as ones to regret. The revenge theme with its search and find elements, though hardly a novelty, is plausibly motivated even if rather too easily performed. The domestic scenes at the home of the guilty man are at once sufficiently uneasily amusing and shocking as to encourage the viewer to overlook their tipping over into caricature and farce. The conclusion where our vengeful protagonist is elbowed out of the killing stakes by a rival for revenge is done with style and emotion. But the main problem is with the characterisation. The villain is such a 24 carat villain as to make him into a demon king from pantomime. How much more challenging and worthwhile would it have been had Chabrol found his villain in a more ordinary, more likeable man - I'm thinking of that famous phrase "the banality of evil." Nor do we ever really get under the skin of either the monomania of our protagonist or the post-hit and run feelings of his girlfriend - in his case past a lust for revenge, in hers a sense of guilt which is revealed very late in the day and which appears not to impinge on her other feelings and actions insofar as we get to know of them. So a decent thriller with pretentions to be something more thoughtful as well but which are not fully realised.
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