Product Description

Directed by Claude Chabrol, Les Biches is a landmark in film history: its theme of bisexuality and upper-class decadence is surpassed only by its cool precision of cinematic style and exceptionally subtle performances. Socialite Frederique (Stephane Audran) encounters young student Why (Jacqueline Sassard) on the streets of Paris, seduces her and whisks her off to spend winter with the chic crowd of St. Tropez. When architect Paul (Jean Louis Trintignant) meets Why, he too charms her and comes between the two lovers. Frederiqe then seduces Paul out of jealousy, but finds herself feeling real love. Paul and Frederique invite Why to live together with them, resulting in a ménage a trios beset by jealousy, madness, and ultimately, murder.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69227 in DVD
• Brand: PATHFINDER HOME ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2003-05-20
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.com
A high point from the middle career of French New Wave original Claude Chabrol, Les Biches is one of the director's tales of complicated, intertwined fates leading to horrifying ends. Chabrol's then-wife, Stephane Audran, plays a rich bisexual who picks up an impoverished young woman (Jacqueline Sassard) and takes her to her home in St. Tropez. There, much to her hostess's consternation, the visitor strikes up a romance with a handsome architect (Jean-Louis Trintignant), only to find that Audran's character is involved with him as well. The overlapping relationships grow full of rich mystery and dark possibility as the unwieldy situation begins to beg for a resolution. A study of class, desire, and compulsion, Les Biches has the hallmarks of Chabrol's streak of fascination with operatic fatalism. --Tom Keogh

From the Back Cover
Directed by Claude Chabrol, Les Biches is a landmark in film history: its theme of bisexuality and upper-class decadence is surpassed only by its cool precision of cinematic style and exceptionally subtle performances. Socialite Frederique (Stephane Audran) encounters young student Why (Jacqueline Sassard) on the streets of Paris, seduces her and whisks her off to spend winter with the chic crowd of St. Tropez. When architect Paul (Jean Louis Trintignant) meets Why, he too charms her and comes between the two lovers. Frederiqe then seduces Paul out of jealousy, but finds herself feeling real love. Paul and Frederique invite Why to live together with them, resulting in a ménage a trios beset by jealousy, madness, and ultimately, murder.

Customer Reviews

A beautiful movie full of woman-to-woman sexual intensity
A beautiful movie full of sexual intensity. The movie revolvesaround the lesbian relationship of a wealthty french woman(StéphaneAudran) and a street artist who becomes her lover/protogee(Jacqueline Sassard).

Both woman are physically stunning and the scenes of them together, though never explicit, are thoroughly sensual. The plot thickens with the intoduction of a third character - an attractive male architect(Jean-Louis Trintignant). The protogee's sway towards him causes a facinating shift in the relationship between all three.

Keep in mind that director Claude Chabrol is something of a French Alfred Hitchcock

Most of the film is shot in St Tropez and Paris. The scenery is breathless.

The blasé Frédérique seeks diversions...
The blasé Frédérique (Stéphane Audran) constantly seeks diversions as she finds Why (Jacqueline Sassard), a female street artist, with whom she initiates a love affair. Frédérique shows off her luxurious apartment in Paris and her mansion on the French Riviera as well as her company for Why. Why, who has nothing, is drawn into Frédérique's steel grip where she is dominated and controlled. The love affair between the two women seems to lead toward an end as Why falls in love with Paul Thomas (Jean-Louis Trintignant), but Frédérique becomes intrigued by the situation and finds a way to get things her way. Chabrol creates an excellent atmosphere in Les Biches, a dark drama, that depicts several concepts such as wealth, the bourgeoisie, domination, and rebellion. These concepts initiate a self-destructive pattern which influences the psychology of Why as she looses control of her own will and life. In the end, Chabrol leaves the viewer with a terrific psychological thriller with an open ending leaving much room for thought.

Handsome Does
Many American reviewers (though not all, thankfully) seem completely baffled by this wonderful sample of French sense and sensibility. Some think it is funny. I couldn't detect anything funny about it. Some say it is not erotic. To me it seemed exceptionally erotic. Others find it dull and boring. Tant pis for them.

Occasionally Chabrol is said to be "The French Hitchcock". However, the subtlety and penetration of Chabrol's presentation and analytic understanding of the psychology of his characters is far superior to anything by Hitchcock, perhaps because Chabrol is unencumbered by the simplistic trammels of Freudianism. The suspense lies in how the increasingly impossible tangle of the relationships is going to be resolved. The straightforward solution would be for Why to shake herself away from the hothouse she has entered; but here the underlying factor takes over: the atmosphere of wealth, ease and gratification has irrevocably seduced her. Corruption of innocence and simplicity appears to be a persistent theme of Chabrol's, from Les Cousins onward. Those who cannot cope are put through hell before they are destroyed.

Almost all the brief summaries of this exceedingly complex film, including the one on the dvd cover, are highly misleading. It defies easy explanation. Whose actions are right and whose are wrong as the events unfold? Each of the three main characters acts with a natural selfishness, but what exactly are their underlying motivations? Why does Frederique seduce Paul? Why does Paul ditch Why? What does Why hope to gain by staying on? Are any of them actually capable of loving another person? Is homosexuality merely an extreme form of narcissism?