The Girl Cut in Two
From Sun 19 to Tue 28 JanLoosely based on the 1906 murder of New York architect Stanford White and Richard Fleischer’s The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), La Fille Coupée en Deux is a psychological thriller/family drama that follows the life of an ambitious young TV presenter, Gabrielle de Neige (Ludivine Sagnier). Gabrielle’s romantic entanglements begin when she meets an older man, renowned writer Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand), while being pursued by Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel), the spoiled and unstable young scion of a wealthy and dysfunctional bourgeois family. As her relationships spiral into obsession and manipulation, Gabrielle finds herself torn between the two men. Themes of control, obsession, and the destructive nature of passion run throughout the film. Chabrol’s direction is marked by a blend of theatricality and dark humor, all the way until the last magic trick performed by Gabrielle to free herself from the flawed men in her life.
Q&A
The screening on 19 January will be introduced by the film’s scriptwriter, Cécile Maistre-Chabrol.