Product Description

Helene is a good mother with a checkered past as a stripper and barmaid. She divorces her ne'er-do-well husband and her in-laws blame her for causing her husband's addiction and set out to remove their grandchild from Helene's custody. Thwarted by the courts, they hire a seedy penniless operative, Paul, to destroy her reputation. He moves into her rooming house and begins to insinuate himself into her life, hatching darker and more convoluted plots to implicate Helene. A harrowing thriller from France's master of suspense, LA RUPTURE ranks among Chabrol's finest works.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76842 in DVD
• Brand: PATHFINDER HOME ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2003-05-20
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 120 minutes

From the Back Cover
Helene is a good mother with a checkered past as a stripper and barmaid. She divorces her ne'er-do-well husband and her in-laws blame her for causing her husband's addiction and set out to remove their grandchild from Helene's custody. Thwarted by the courts, they hire a seedy penniless operative, Paul, to destroy her reputation. He moves into her rooming house and begins to insinuate himself into her life, hatching darker and more convoluted plots to implicate Helene. A harrowing thriller from France's master of suspense, LA RUPTURE ranks among Chabrol's finest works.

Customer Reviews

Hmmm... That summary leaves a bit to be desired...
Excellent Chabrol film --- probably the best introduction to the director. I'm suprised and very happy that this is out on video at a sell-through price. For some inexplicable reason, no one seems to talk much about this film. It's extremely absorbing and quite beautiful to look at though. Stephane Audran is particularly charming in this movie, although some have thought her to be a bit sophisticated for the part. A silly criticism, I think. The colors in this movie are absolutely amazing --- everything somehow dayglo and hyperrealistic at the same time. I think Philip K. Dick fans would in particular get a kick out of this film. It's organized similarly to his novels... Everything just gets more and more disjointed until reality has almost completely broken down. The denouement is pretty darned funny, too. A film that more folks should see, it'll add to your appreciation of Chabrol's other films too.

La Rupture ruptured
Not one of Chabrol's best despite interesting plot and characterizations. Horrific scene of domestic violence opens the film: father violently attacks wife and then throws his small child across the room, which cracks the boy's head open on the kitchen floor. And later we are subjected to a disturbing sequence of child molestation (the actress who portrays the young girl is a woman dressed as a child, but the portrayal is of a mentally disabled girl who is drugged and molested while forced to watch pornography, and then is INEXPLICABLY shown later to have actually enjoyed it). This sequence makes absolutely no sense to the plot whatsoever and is absolutely REVOLTING. Frequently over-the-top and exaggerated themes in this film prove to be a huge turn off. I just couldn't see past these barriers to understand the true meanings in this work, if there were any. One could skip this film altogether in the Chabrol canon. Despite these setbacks, Stephane Audran does a superior and sublime job as always. Other far more meaningful and rewarding films by Chabrol: Le Boucher, Les Biches, and Le Femme Infidele. The audio commentary is more interesting than the film itself, so don't miss the audio commentary portion of the DVD if you decide to give this one a try. I threw this one back.

La Rupture
One of Chabrol's most jarring suspense films opens with a shocking scene of domestic violence before settling into a quiet, disturbing tale of moral corruption and wicked duplicity. Audran tweaks our sympathies as the vulnerable young mother who rents a boarding room across from the hospital where her son recuperates, only to find herself isolated and scorned by the elderly female tenants, then manipulated by Cassel's twisted schemes (which involve LSD, porn, and a dim-witted innocent). If this film didn't end on a psychedelic grace note, you could almost call it an experiment in psychological sadism. "Rupture" is a Hitchcockian marvel.