The Girl Cut in Two

Impeccably made and uncompromisingly adult, Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two is unquestionably the work of a master.

The plot was probably inspired by an actual event, which I will not mention because you may be familiar with it. In any event, Chabrol's insidious style is more absorbing than the plot, as it should be.

Would be worthy of the highest rating, except for a slight slackening of energy in the last 20 minutes.

Chabrol, who is often called the French Hitchcock because of his intricate thrillers, is approaching the big 8-0, yet he continues to do quality work, as shown by A Girl Cut in Two.

A Girl Cut in Two is a spry piece of work. Chabrol uses this sinister clown show as a means to puncture the media world's hot-air balloons--as well as to highlight the hypocrisies of his favorite target, the haute bourgeoisie.

I can't help wishing that Chabrol would, just once, cast off his own good narrative manners--do away with the irritations of a film like A Girl Cut in Two, which is never more than semi-plausible, and arrange his passions, as the elderly Buñuel did in "That Obscure Object of Desire," into shameless, surreal anagrams of wit and lust.

Velvety storytelling still feels more thawed-out than heated.