"Actor: Daniel Lecourtois"

• Juste Avant La Nuit | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This Claude Chabrol film is a dark tale of secrets erotica and crime. Successful advertising executive Charles Masson is involved in a hot affair with his best friend's wife Laura. When one of their S&M romps goes bad Charles strangles Laura to death in an apartment that was borrowed. While racing from the scene of the crime he bumps into his friend Francois and drives back to their neighborhood. When someone realises that he'd seen Charles and Laura together in the past he decides not to go to the police with the information. With no clues to the crime police have a hard time finding a suspect. Charles however has an even harder time coping with guilt his children and his loyal wife Helene.

• Les Noces Rouges | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £9.70   |  Saving you £10.29 (51.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Les Noces Rouges Claude Chabrol extends his usual stinging examination of the French bourgeoisie family into the exaggerated realm of the tragi-comic all the while maintaining his signature elements of psychological terror and thrilling yet detached suspense. Based on an actual French murder case Les Noces Rouges is the story of two lovers each stuck in loveless marriages. Lucienne (Stephane Audran) is married to the frigid and obtuse Paul who is the semi-corrupt mayor of their small town. Pierre (Michel Piccoli) is Paul's deputy mayor and is married to a chronically ill and lifeless wife. An illicit affair of exaggerated passion explodes between Pierre and Lucienne and for a while their passion is enough for them. However when Pierre's wife mysteriously dies and Lucienne's husband discovers her infidelity the plot switches from its seemingly sleepy bourgeois tale of marital troubles and delves into the film noir stylings that could be compared to The Postman Always Rings Twice. The political duplicitousness enacted by Paul and Pierre behind closed doors in the small town's government offices is mirrored and magnified in the fractured narrative of the deranged and depraved transaction between the three players in this tale of love and lust gone sour.