Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge had stomach for them all.
Shakespeare's Othello

Have you ever imagined how you would react if one of your children was kidnapped or struck down by a hit-and-run driver? Imagine for the moment that you had no other ties except that one child. Nothing to restrain your impulse for vengeance, no spouse or other children to keep your response sober. These kinds of questions form the essential subject matter of This Man Must Die (1969), a tense thriller from director Claude Chabrol, entitled Que la bête meure in French.

Historical Background: Claude Chabrol had an amazingly long career, beginning in 1958 and continuing up to, at least, 2000. That career included three golden periods in which Chabrol produced one small gem after another, but the golden periods were separated by long creative droughts in which Chabrol was either forced to make films for commercial consumption (to salvage his finances) or simply found his creative well near dry. His first golden period included his sparkling debut film Le Beau Serge (1958)as well as Les Cousins (1959), and Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). His middle golden period, nicknamed his “Hélène” period, ran from 1968 to 1972, and included Bad Girls (1968), La Femme Infidèle (1969), Le Boucher (1969), This Man Must Die (1969), La Rupture (1970), Just Before Nightfall (1971), and Docteur Popaul (1972). The nickname for this period (Hélène) comes from the fact that the name of the lead female character in most of these films was always the same, Hélène. Most of the time, Hélène was played by Chabrol’s first wife, Stéphanie Audran, but in This Man Must Die, the role is taken by Caroline Cellier. Chabrol’s third great period occurred in the mid-1990’s with such films as L’Enfer (1994) and La Cérémonie (1995). Story of Women made in 1988 starring Isabelle Huppert is one rare instance of a superior film by Chabrol coming from outside his three golden periods.

Chabrol’s Hélène period is the one that most shows the influences of Hitchcock and Lang. The films from this period are tightly wound psychological thrillers and certainly This Man Must Die is no exception in that respect. The script for this film was based on a novel entitled The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake. Chabrol served as co-writer along with longtime associate Paul Gégauff. Gégauff bears some of the responsibility for the dark tone of the films of the Hélène period and the somewhat misogynistic treatment of women as femmes fatale and reefs on which any good man-o-war could wreck. This turned out to be some kind of profound prescience on Gégauff’s part, as he was ultimately grotesquely murdered by his second wife!

The Story: In one respect, one need not concern oneself to the usual extent with the issue of “spoilers” in discussing this film, because, however attentively one might watch it, there will be some uncertainty as to what precisely has transpired in the end. This is one of those films that leaves you with something to ponder when all is said and done. Was it A or was it B? Either A or B is arguable and neither stands out as substantially more likely than the other. But how did we get to those final stanzas?

As the film opens, a young lad of eight gathers his gear together on a seaside beach in Brittany and heads home. Meanwhile, a swank black Mustang recklessly speeds along the ocean drive. Shortly, the two collide tragically in the town square in a hit-and-run accident. The boy is killed instantly as the thoughtless driver speeds away. The boy was the son and only child of widowed children’s writer Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy). Charles becomes obsessed with finding his son’s killer and taking his revenge. He begins a diary by recording his solemn vow to kill the man responsible for his son’s death. The police investigate in the usual ways but make no headway.

Charles is wealthy enough to be able to direct his time as he sees fit and determines to commit himself for as long as it takes to finding the killer. He scours junkyards and body repair shops for evidence of a damaged left wing of a black Mustang – to no avail. During his travels, one day, he is forced onto a road detour and gets stuck in mud on a back road. The farmer who comes along to help describes one of the previous instances of a car being stuck at the same spot and it is quickly apparent to Charles from the particulars provided that it must have been the car involved in the hit-and-run. He learns that there was a man and a woman in the car, that the man was a beastly, abusive sort of person, and the woman was an actress named Helene Lanson. Charles now has the lead that he so desperately required.

Charles locates Helene, arranges to meet her, and, with his charm and good looks, seduces her. He remains determined to kill whoever killed his son, but begins to hope that Helene was only a passenger rather than the driver. He discovers that Helene has a brother-in-law, Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne), who owns one of the largest garages in Brittany and fits the description of the nasty tempered man. Charles wheedles his way into Helene’s life and confidence and expresses interest in meeting her family.

Charles and Helene travel to the home of her sister, Jeanne Decourt (Anouk Ferjac), in Brittany. As the family gathers for pre-dinner cocktails, Paul has yet to get home from the garage. In addition to Charles and Helene, the company includes Jeanne, Paul’s ghastly mother, his business partner Jacques Ferrand (Guy Marly), Ferrand’s wife Anna (Lorraine Rainer), and a teenage son of Jeanne and Paul, Phillippe (Marc Di Napoli). The group shares a pleasant cocktail hour with Jeanne paying special attention to Charles because of their shared interest in literature. Suddenly, the pleasantries are poisoned by the arrival of Paul. We first hear his voice in the kitchen badly abusing the hired help. Paul, it seems, is a nasty man through and through – evil incarnate, practically. During dinner, he fondles the maid's leg as she serves dinner. He ridicules his wife’s food preparations and then pulls from his pocket a piece of her poetry that he had confiscated that morning to mock in front of the assembled guests. When his son tips his glass over, Paul throws a dish at him and orders him from the room. Later, we discover that Paul is having an undisguised affair with his partner’s wife. He tries to interest Charles in a scheme to defraud an old widow. Charles learns that Phillippe despises his father and wants him dead. One can hardly blame the boy. Viewers can’t help hating the man as well.

Charles has found the killer of his son and, moreover, he is a despicable evil man. Everyone in his own family, other than his mother (who is equally vile), wants the man dead. And we’re still only half way through the film. A large segment of the film is then devoted to the suspense of whether, when, and how Charles will do Paul in. Charles is in no particular hurry to finish the job. He writes in his diary: “Lovers often hesitate, not out of shyness but to prolong their awaiting happiness. I, full of hatred, am savouring what awaits me. His killing will only be a gesture of a man throwing away the useless peel of a fruit slowly enjoyed to the pit.”

From here to the stories conclusion, there are multiple further twists which I don’t intend to spoil for readers. This is, after all, a suspense story and thriller and the enjoyment lies in discovering what transpires.

Themes: It’s been told many times, but the problem with being consumed by revenge is that if its culminated, one is left empty. The revenge never quenches the pain from the original loss and, having lost revenge as one’s reason for continued existence, nothing remains. Ecclesiastes says of revenge: “The Beast must die but the Man too. One and the other must die.” Revenge is likely to consume both the object of the feeling and he who thirsts for it. Charles’s profession as a writer of children’s books added another layer of complexity to the theme, since it suggests a man in the perpetual innocence of childhood. Vengeance must be the death of innocence.

Production Values: This Man Must Die is a flawed film that nevertheless explores a profound moral theme in the context of a suspense-filled story. Its raw value as art is too great to dismiss simply because of the shoddy editing and narrative rough spots. There is a wrenching bit of editing during Paul’s arrival home from the cocktail party to the dinner table. I had to rerun the segment three times to determine exactly who Paul was inappropriately fondling. There’s the obvious question as to why Charles, who had demonstrated a gift for detective work, did not inquire of the farmer and his son whether the man or the woman was driving the black Mustang when it got stuck in the mud. There’s some odd discrepancies near the end that I can’t go into without generating spoilers. Even so, the fascinating issue of vengeance, the interesting characters, the suspense and twists, and the fine performances make this a worthy film.

Charles’s diary serves an odd double function in this film. It serves, first, as a expository device to allow the introduction of some first person narrative as Charles reads what he writes. Later, it becomes a plot element, as the question arises as to why Charles kept the diary in the first place.

The raw Brittany coast is beautiful photography in This Man Must Die and it creates the proper atmosphere for exploring one of the harshest of human emotions. The color scheme was appropriately muddy and dark – like the emotion of revenge. The musical score, on the other hand, was nothing especially compelling.

Jean Yanne's portrayal of Paul was magnificent in the grotesqueness of its evilness. This was evil of entertainingly cartoonish magnitude. Yanne’s other work included Godard’s Weekend (1967), Chabrol’s Le Boucher (1969), and Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001). I loved the performance of Caroline Cellier as Helen. She was beautifully appealing and vulnerable. I wanted, for her sake, for things to work out between her and Charles. I thought Michel Duchaussoy was very good, though not fantastic, in the lead role. He appeared in the earlier Chabrol film La Femme Infidèle (1969) and in Life and Nothing But (1989).

Bottom-Line: If you like Hitchcock-style suspense thrillers, this film should provide you with a good night of solid entertainment and something to mull over when the curtain falls. There are a few rough edges, but not so rough as to spoil the overall fabric. This Man Must Die is in French. I forbid you, if I may be so bold, to purchase the dubbed version of this film. The DVD that provides optional subtitles is infinitely preferable. The running time for this film is 107 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older