Line #22 Film/JusteAvantLaNuit


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/juste_avant_la_nuit.jpg]]
2
3	''Juste avant la nuit'' (''Just Before Nightfall'') is a 1971 French thriller film directed by Creator/ClaudeChabrol, starring Creator/MichelBouquet and Creator/StephaneAudran.
4
5	Charles Masson (Bouquet) has an affair with Laura, the wife of his best friend François Tellier. They practice BDSM and one day he strangles her during a sexual intercourse. The police investigates the case, but they have no clue who the murderer is.
6
7	----
8	!!''Juste avant la nuit'' provides examples of:
9	* AnimalMotifs: Just after Charles killed Laura, his son tells that he heard a rat in the house. Hélène suggests to buy a rat trap. In the end, Charles sees the rat as he gets caught in the trap, just before [[spoiler:he decides to turn himself in and Hélène decides to kill him to avoid a scandal]].
10	* BestFriend: François is Charles's best friend.
11	* CasualKink: Charles and Laura practice BDSM and this is how he killed her. When Charles tells his wife, she is not shocked.
12	* ChekhovsGun: The laudanum that Charles regularly takes to get some sleep. In the end, [[spoiler:Hélène poisons him with it]].
13	* ADeadlyAffair: Charles kills his lover, Laura, during BDSM practice.
14	* DiesWideOpen: Laura is shown with her eyes staring blankly immediately after the murder. Charles later recounts that Laura had instructed him to strangle her as part of their [[EroticAsphyxiation sex games]], telling him she would signal him to stop by closing her eyes. Because she never closed her eyes, he didn't realize she was dead until it was too late.
15	* DropDeadGorgeous: Laura's nude body is shown lying on the bed after she is strangled.
16	* EroticAsphyxiation: Laura instructs Charles to strangle her as part of their sex games. It winds up going too far.
17	* TheFilmOfTheBook: The script is based on ''The Thin Line'' by Edward Atiyah (1951).
18	* KarmaHoudini: [[{{Deconstruction}} Decontructed]]. The people who have clues that Charles might be involved in the crime (François Tellier and Gina Maillardi) do not tell the police, so Charles seems to get away scott free. Yet, he feels guilty, so he tells [[spoiler:his wife, then his friend]], but they do not denounce him. [[spoiler:So he decides eventually to turn himself in, but his wife prefers to avoid a scandal and poisons him.]]
19	* NeverSuicide: [[spoiler:Charles's]] death looks like a suicide, but actually [[spoiler:Hélène]] poisoned him.
20	* PlotTriggeringDeath: The film starts with Laura's murder.
21	* PosthumousCharacter: Laura. She is killed very early in the film and she plays an important role in the plot.
22	* StealingFromTheTill: Bardin steals from the till of Charles's company.
23	* SympatheticMurderer: Charles, Laura's murderer, gets a sympathetic point of view. He explains that Laura made him suffer.
24	* VillainProtagonist: Charles, the protagonist, is Laura's murderer.
25	* VomitDiscretionShot: After the murder, Charles goes to a bar and vomits due to his guilt and stress. The scene fades to black as he bends over the toilet, then fades back in to show him washing his face afterwards.

Context Film / JusteAvantLaNuit