One deadly summer = L'Ete Meurtrier

Isabelle Adjani plays Elle, a fiery nineteen-year-old woman who moves to a small provincial French town with her introverted German born mother and reclusive disabled father. Elle is a confident woman who wantonly displays her sexy body and soon has every man in town captivated. Alain Souchon plays Pin Pon, a mechanic who falls into an obsession with Elle, and agonizes over invalidated rumours of other men’s conquests of her. Motivated by revenge, Elle easily draws Pin Pon into her orbit and soon moves in with him, despite the disapproval of his pious mother. Through a series of flashbacks it is revealed that twenty years earlier, in the post war period, Elle’s mother was brutally gang raped by several French deliverymen. Elle, tortured by issues of her parentage, is driven to avenge her mother’s rape but is also stirred by secrets from her own past that exacerbate her increasingly unstable mental condition. The switching of first person narration allows for multiple viewpoints to be appreciated by the viewer. This is a tragedy about vengeance, obsessive behaviour and neuroses. (Awards: Adjani won a Cesar for Best supporting actress, 1983). In French with English subtitles.