Les Diabolique (1955)In the movie Les Diabolique, Christina (Véra Clouzot) is married to Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse), who mistreats her and abuses her almost as much as he (supposedly) does his mistress Nicole (Simone Signoret).  Christina could divorce Michel, and she would get full ownership of the boarding school they operate owing to the fact that her dowry paid for it. Michel would simply have to go out and get himself another job.  There is just one problem with that.  Christina is very religious, having been raised in a convent, and she believes that divorce is a mortal sin.  So, she agrees with Nicole that they will have to murder Michel instead.

This absurdity brought me to halt.  I wondered if the novel, Celle qui n’était plus, was responsible for this perverse thinking on the part of Christina.  It wasn’t.  In that novel, a man and his mistress plan on murdering his wife in order to collect on her life insurance policy.  In the end, the two women are actually lesbian lovers who cause the husband to have a heart attack, cashing in on his life insurance policy instead.  And they get away with it.  The main thing, however, is that murdering someone for money makes a lot more sense than murdering him because divorce is a sin.

Curiosity got the better of me, however, so I watched the rest of the movie.  As it turns out, Nicole and Michel have conspired to make Christina think that she and Nicole have drowned Michel in a bathtub.  Then the two women dump his body in the swimming pool at the boarding school, supposedly to make it appear that he fell in and drowned.  It’s all pretty farfetched because Christina has to conveniently leave the room or turn away long enough for Michel to get a breath of air before pretending to still be drowned.

When the pool is drained, however, Michel’s body is nowhere to be found.  Christina is so horrified that she faints.  After she recovers, Nicole finds her kneeling at her prayer bench.  On it are statuettes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.  Christina is holding a rosary, her hands clasped in prayer.  We don’t get to hear that prayer, however.  My guess is that it would have been something like this:  “Dear God, don’t let anyone find out that Nicole and I murdered Michel.”

Later, Christina discovers Michel’s body in another bathtub full of water.  When he rises up, as if from the dead, Christina, who has a weak heart, dies of a heart attack.  This was supposed to allow Michel to inherit the boarding school, which he and Nicole could sell for a lot of money.  A detective discovers the truth, however, and Nicole and Michel will end up going to prison.

There was a remake of this movie, Diabolique (1996).  It changed the ending so that the two women kill the husband, and neither of them will be charged with a crime.  More importantly, a better reason is given as to why the wife does not get a divorce, which is that a divorce would not give her clear ownership of the boarding school.  So, instead of the wife choosing to murder her husband because divorce is a mortal sin, she chooses to murder her husband as a way of getting ownership of the school without any legal difficulties.  Although the critics did not care for this remake, and it bombed at the box office, we must at least give this movie some credit for giving the wife a reason for not divorcing her husband that makes sense.

Nevertheless, Christina’s thinking in the original, irrational though it may appear, might nevertheless be realistic, psychologically speaking, and that for two reasons.  First, talking about God is an indirect way of talking about man.  If Christina were to get a divorce, everyone would know about it.  She would feel ashamed every time she went to church.  This feeling would be experienced as God’s disapproval of her shameful conduct.  On the other hand, only she and Nicole would know that the two of them had murdered Michel.  Therefore, Christina could still go to mass without anyone knowing the truth, which would be like God not caring what she had done.

Second, a person’s religious nature ranges from the moral to the magical.  For some people, their religious beliefs focus on being good and doing what is right.  Their belief in the supernatural is minimal.  Even the belief that there is a God may fade away.  For others, religious belief is all about the supernatural, about spiritual forces that one can manipulate, even for immoral purposes.  Christina is of the magical sort.  At one point in the movie, when Nicole says something about their plan to kill Michel, Christina shudders and crosses herself.  Presumably, when people make the sign of the cross, they are expressing their faith in God and making an unspoken prayer for his protection. For Christina, it is as if she wants God to give her the strength to murder her husband and shed his grace on her for doing so.  One might think that her belief in Hell would stop her from doing anything that sinful, but she apparently believes she can compel God’s favor by blessing herself, forcing God to support and forgive her.

When Christina was at her prayer bench, an alternative prayer to the one I suggested above might have been one of repentance, asking God for forgiveness.  In that case, one might think that genuine contrition on her part would have resulted in her turning herself in to the authorities, but only if one doesn’t fully appreciate the spiritual dynamics of Catholicism.  In “I Confess” (1953), for example, a man confesses to a priest that he committed murder, but he has no intention of turning himself in to the authorities.  It’s all about availing oneself of the magical forces of religion, manipulating them to one’s advantage.

As a matter of fact, when Christina decides that somehow or other Michel must still be alive, she tells Nicole she is going to confession.  I guess Nicole never saw “I Confess,” because she says to Christina, “Do you think you’ll get absolution if you don’t turn yourself in?”

Christina apparently hadn’t seen that movie either, since she replies, “Then I’ll turn myself in.”  But then Nicole tells her Michel’s body has been found, showing her the morning newspaper, where it is reported that a man’s body has been found in the Seine.

Well, that changes everything.  No need for a confession now.