La Rupture

Watershed is screening La Rupture on Sunday 18 October, part of their Claude Chabrol: Elements of Crime season. It's a newly restored print, shown with thanks to the BFI, and it's one of several Chabrol films they're bringing to the screen over the coming weeks.

If you're not familiar with the name, Chabrol was one of the original critic-turned-filmmakers of Cahiers du Cinéma. Alongside Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer, he spearheaded the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 60s. But while his colleagues were busy reshaping the language of cinema in their own image, Chabrol was more interested in reshaping French cinema in that of Alfred Hitchcock. That fascination with Hitchcock's coolly detached visual style led to films like Le Boucher and La Femme infidèle.

La Rupture itself follows Hélène, whose life unravels after her acid-tongued husband sends their son to the hospital. That sets things in motion for her father-in-law, Ludovic, who hires the erstwhile romantic charmer Paul to blackmail her. It's a domestic drama that pulls its tension from the friction between the characters, and seeing it restored on the big screen is a good way to get a proper look at Chabrol's approach.

The screening is at 14:00 on Sunday 18 October at Watershed in Bristol. It's part of the wider Claude Chabrol: Elements of Crime season, so if you're into the French New Wave or Hitchcock's influence on it, there's more to catch around it.