''The Breach'' (), also titled ''The Breakup'', is a 1970 French–Italian–Belgian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...

, based on the novel ''The Balloon Man'' by

Charlotte Armstrong Charlotte Armstrong Lewi (May 2, 1905 – July 18, 1969) was an American writer. Under the names Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine she wrote 29 novels, as well as short stories, plays, and screenplays. She also worked for ''The New York Times ...

. It follows a mother's struggle for custody of her son against her husband's parents.

Plot

Hélène Régnier, confronted with her drug-addicted husband Charles injuring their son Michel in a violent outburst, resorts to physical retaliation, beating Charles to the floor with a frying pan. She escapes with Michel and relocates to a

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

near the hospital where Michel is recuperating. Initiating divorce proceedings, Hélène seeks legal assistance from Allan Jourdan, who, despite her financial constraints, supports her case. Simultaneously, Charles' affluent and controlling parents, disapproving of his marriage, reclaim their son, aiming to obtain custody of Michel. Ludovic Régnier, Hélène's father-in-law, engages Paul Thomas, a family acquaintance, to dig up compromising information on Hélène. Paul, with his girlfriend Sonia, moves into the boarding house, orchestrating a plot to tarnish Hélène's reputation. Despite their efforts, the scheme fails. The concluding scenes depict Hélène, under the influence of drugs administered by Paul, navigating a surreal world, while the custody case's resolution remains uncertain.

Cast

Stéphane Audran Stéphane Audran (born Colette Suzanne Jeannine Dacheville; 8 November 1932 – 27 March 2018) was a French film actress. She was known for her performances in the films of her husband Claude Chabrol, including '' Les Biches'' (1968) and '' Le Bou ...

as Hélène Régnier *

Jean-Pierre Cassel Jean-Pierre Cassel (; born Jean-Pierre Crochon; 27 October 1932 – 19 April 2007) was a French actor and dancer. A popular star of French cinema, he was initially known for his comedy film appearances, though he also proved a gifted dramatic a ...

as Paul Thomas *

Michel Bouquet Michel François Pierre Bouquet (6 November 1925 – 13 April 2022) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1947 to 2020. He won the Best Actor European Film Award for '' Toto the Hero'' in 1991 and two Best ...

as Ludovic Régnier *

Michel Duchaussoy Michel René Jacques Duchaussoy (29 November 1938 – 13 March 2012) was a French film actor, who appeared in more than 130 films between 1962 and 2012. At first a theatre actor, he worked for many years in the Comédie Française, where he ...

as Allan Jourdan *

Annie Cordy Léonie Juliana, Baroness Cooreman (16 June 1928 – 4 September 2020), also known by her stage name Annie Cordy, was a Belgian actress and singer. She appeared in more than 50 films from 1954 and staged many memorable appearances at Bruno Coq ...

as Mme. Pinelli *

Jean-Claude Drouot Jean Claude Drouot (born 17 December 1938) is a Belgian actor whose career has lasted over a half-century. At the age of twenty-five, he gained widespread fame in the French-speaking world as a result of portraying the title role in the popular ...

as Charles Régnier *

Jean Carmet Jean Carmet (; 25 April 1920 – 20 April 1994) was a French actor. Life and career Jean Carmet began working on stage and then in film in the early 1940s becoming a very popular comedic actor in his native country. He is best known internat ...

as Henri Pinelli *

Catherine Rouvel Catherine Rouvel (born Catherine Vitale; 31 August 1939 in Marseille) is an acclaimed French actress. Her career spans from 1959 in television to 2004. At 14, she took dance classes, which she abandoned in favor of theater. She made her debut wi ...

as Sonia * Claude Chabrol as passager in the tramway

Release

''The Breach'' was released on 26 August 1970 in France, where it had a total of 927,678 admissions. On 4 October 1973, it premiered at the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

Reception

Upon the film's premiere at the New York Film Festival,

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote a sympathetic yet mixed review. While acknowledging that it has "many beautiful things in it", the "disadvantages and indignities are piled so thickly on the poor heroine that one knows early that the film is obliged to offer her vindication", which itself "isn't surprising or touching enough to transform the melodrama of "La Rupture" into tragedy". In his 1985 review for the ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...

'', Dave Kerr's resume was thoroughly positive, calling ''La Rupture'' one of Chabrol's key films of the 1970s and a "most audacious experiment with narrative form… which begins with clear black/white, good/evil distinctions and then gradually self-destructs, breaking down into increasingly elliptical and imponderable fragments". In her book ''Claude Chabrol's Aesthetics of Opacity'' (2018), Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze sees Chabrol "veering away from any realist anchoring and venturing into the realm of the symbolic". With the film being strongly influenced by the fairy tale, the characters become markers of this genre, with Hélène as the "beautiful princess or good fairy", Paul Thomas as "the evil witch", the ladies at the boarding house as

Parcae In Religion in ancient Rome, ancient Roman religion and Roman mythology, myth, the Parcae (singular, Parca) were the female personifications of destiny who directed the lives (and deaths) of humans and gods. They are often called the Fates in En ...

and Ludovic Régnier as "the incarnation of pure evil".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Breach 1970 films 1970 drama films French drama films Italian drama films Films directed by Claude Chabrol Films shot in Belgium Films shot in Paris Films based on American novels Films based on works by Charlotte Armstrong 1970s French-language films 1970s Italian films 1970s French films Belgian drama films Films scored by Pierre Jansen French-language Italian films