Claude Chabrol's Les Biches | The Does (1967)

Les Biches refers to the does chalked by the pavement artist Why (Jacqueline Sassard) on the Pont des Arts as the rich and predatory Fréderique (Stéphane Audray) looks on until Why packs up and is picked up by the elder woman. Reading Guy Austin's Claude Chabrol in Manchester University Press's 'French Film Directors' series, it's interesting to note the observation about two prints sold by a bouquiniste in the film: Fréderique wants to know why they have different prices, and is told that one is the original, the other is a copy: a first-and-only-time viewer of Les Biches would find difficulty understanding this as an allusion to the real and the fake Fréderique at the end of the film.

I'm unsure of Austin's take on vampirism in Les Biches, although it's fascinating to learn of Chabrol's relationship with Paul Gégauff, the writer who frequently co-wrote screenplays with the director, very occasionally on his own. There's often a character like the younger Chabrol ('innocent, reserved, repressed') and a Gégauffian one ('cynical, charismatic, provocative'), often called 'Charles' and 'Paul' respectively.

In Les Biches though there's only a Paul (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who breaks the lesbian Fréderique/Why duo when he first goes for Why, then Fréderique falls for him, leaving Why murderously jealous and taking on the perssona (and clothing) of Fréderique.

Guy Austin includes this (spiritually if not factually) in the Hélène cycle, although there is of course no actual Hélène.