The Flower of Evil
Director: Claude Chabrol
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 1.0
I find it hard to believe that a filmmaker as experienced as Chabrol can think that this film - with its super thin storyline - can glide on whimsy alone, but that's precisely what he tries to pull off. It doesn't work. The bloodlines of the main family are as incestuously intertwined as that famous joke about the American South ("If your family tree doesn't fork, you might be a ...") and making sense of it might require a pen and paper (thankfully, the people at Palm included a map on the disc); likewise, the incessant references (and backhanded slaps) to America ('they're not as stupid as they look') make modern-day Godard sound diplomatic in comparison.
