Chabrol, the Master of Quiet Mayhem

A spilled tumbler of an exquisite hot chocolate doesn’t usually send shivers down one’s spine, but with the sure-handed direction of French filmmaker Claude Chabrol guiding his frequent accomplice Isabelle Huppert, the sticky mess can ooze with positively homicidal implications. Chabrol’s most recent film to get a U.S. release, “Merci Pour le Chocolat,” starring Huppert, Jacques Dutronc and Anna Mouglalis, opens Friday at the Royal in West L.A. and the Rialto in South Pasadena.

As one of the “Cahiers du Cinema” scribes who traded their critics’ quills for movie cameras, Chabrol beat Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard to the director’s chair with his 1958 feature debut, “Le Beau Serge.” The success of his follow-up, “Les Cousins,” allowed him to set up a company that launched the directing careers of Eric Rohmer, Philippe de Broca and Jacques Rivette. While directing nearly 50 films in a 44-year career, Chabrol established himself as one of the enduring members of the French New Wave.

“Merci Pour le Chocolat,” co-written with his “La Ceremonie” collaborator Caroline Eliacheff, returns Chabrol to the subtle, hairs-standing-on-the-back-of-your-neck thrillers such as “Les Bonnes Femmes” (1960), “La Femme Infidele” (1968)--which inspired Adrian Lyne’s recent “Unfaithful”--and “Le Boucher” (1969), that established him as a master of the genre.

Chabrol’s films often feature characters whose detached, murderous ways serve as metaphors, echoing the casual cruelties inflicted on loved ones. In delivering plots that appear obvious in their exposition but shroud the level of evil characters allow themselves to acknowledge, Chabrol explores the solipsism that underlies contemporary life. “We have tried to illustrate this idea by the slow dissolution of the most definite certainties of our society,” wrote Chabrol in his director’s note of intent. “The main aim is to get across the idea that all certainties melt away as the story progresses.”