Shades Of Gray

By RICHARD CORLISS

STORY OF WOMEN

Directed by Claude Chabrol

Screenplay by Colo Tavernier O'Hagan and Claude Chabrol

In 1943 the Vichy government condemned Marie-Louise Giraud to the guillotine for the crime of performing abortions. She was one of the last three women executed in France. If her story were made into an American TV movie, Giraud would cut one of two familiar figures. She might be a pioneer battler for reproductive rights, bravely tending to the misery of her countrywomen. Or she could be the cold and soulless predator, robbing a besieged nation of its progeny.

All praise, then, to Claude Chabrol for painting the story in honest shades of gray, for finding sense in a case that could wallow in sensation. His Marie (Isabelle Huppert) is caged in a drab marriage in a dull town in occupied France. The Germans have put hopes on hold; survival is a matter of wily , compromise. When Marie finds a neighbor artlessly attempting an abortion, she helps out. Word gets around, and soon she is a successful businesswoman. And the perfect homebody: she performs abortions in the kitchen, rents her spare room to a prostitute and takes her collaborator lover (Nils Tavernier) to the bedroom. Like Charles Chaplin's murderous Monsieur Verdoux, she is a microcosm of her amoral country.

Story of Women, named best foreign-language film by three critics' groups, is an eloquent example of Simenon cinema -- the kind of movie that, in the manner of Georges Simenon's novels, treats melodramatic subjects with clinical dispassion. Chabrol never coddles viewers; he trusts them to sort out the evidence. His Marie is too complicated to be either a monster or a savior. And Huppert's beautifully deadpan performance finds the ideal emblem for Marie, a vessel empty of everything but human contradictions.