The Flower of Evil (film)

The Flower of Evil (original title: La fleur du mal) is a 2003 French film by Claude Chabrol.

It tells of an outwardly perfect family in Bordeaux, whose seeming perfection begins to unravel when the wife involves herself in politics. A corpse surfaces just before the local election and the spectre of past family indiscretion resurfaces in mysterious deaths and other scandals.

Synopsis

In a grand house at Bordeaux lives Gérard, owner of a pharmaceutical business. A drinker and fornicator, he disgusts his son François, recently returned from the USA. To Gérard’s disgust, his second wife Anne is a candidate in the municipal election.

Her daughter by her first marriage, Michèle, is excited by the return of François and the two go off for a weekend at Pyla, where they become lovers. Anne’s old aunt Line encourages the pair.

Anne’s campaign takes a jolt when she and her family are smeared in an anonymous tract. The family suspect that Gérard is the author. Not everybody believes the slanders and the outgoing mayor, impressed by Anne’s qualities, promises her his job if she wins a seat.

On the night of the count everybody is at the town hall except Michéle, who has to finish an assignment for her university course. Gérard sneaks home drunk and tries to rape her, but in the struggle falls and dies.

Line then confesses to Michèle that she had loved her brother too closely, until he was executed in the Second World War as a member of the French Resistance. The man who ordered the execution was their father, a Nazi collaborator, so Line killed him. She says she will now take the blame for killing Gérard.

A cavalcade of hooting cars then sweeps into the drive and Anne’s supporters throng into the house to toast her victory in champagne.

Awards and nominations

Entry

Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection

Nominated

Goya Awards

• Best European Film (lost to Good Bye Lenin!)

External links

• The Flower of Evil at the Internet Movie Database