In
1933, two domestic servants in Le Mans, France, were convicted
of brutally murdering their employer and her daughter in a
one-day trial. Despite the possibility that they were mentally
deranged, no psychiatric defense was allowed. The crime, believed
to be the most heinous case of women murdering women in the
world, shocked the French nation and is the subject of Murderous
Maids (Les blessures assassines), directed by Jean-Pierre
Denis. Following the story in Paulette Houdyer's L'affaire
Papin (1988), the film presents a scenario of events that
is perhaps more plausible than four previous efforts--three
films and Jean Genet's play The Maids. When the film
begins, the two girls, sisters, are quite young. We learn
that Christine Papin has been raped by her father, and the
two are brought up by their irresponsible mother Clemence
(played by Isabelle Renauld). Conditions at home deteriorate,
so Christine is sent to a convent at the age of eleven. When
she is discharged from the convent for misconduct, Christine
works as a housemaid. Due to employer snobbery, Christine
misbehaves, is discharged by several employers, and eventually
finds employment in the Lancelin household. Christine then
angles to have her younger sister Léa join her as a
maid for the Lancelins, and their proximity in the same servant's
bedroom sets up the chemistry between the dominance of maternalistic
Christine and the passivity of grateful Léa. Several
passionate scenes portray the result after Christine assures
Léa that what they are doing is not a sin. When Madame
Lancelin (played by Dominique Labourier) one evening confirms
her suspicion that the two are Lesbians, Christine (played
by Sylvie Testud) beats her and her daughter mercilessly until
they are dead. Léa (played by Julie-Marie Parmentier),
hearing the sounds of the beatings, comes to see what has
happened, decides to implicate herself rather than separating
herself from Christine, and the two are soon arrested. While
in detention, awaiting trial, Christine calls out for Léa's
so loudly that prison guards put Léa in Christine's
cell for a few minutes. Titles tell the rest of the story.
Afterward, Christine calms down and never utters Léa's
name again. While Christine was given the death penalty, her
sentence was commuted to life, and she died in a psychiatric
hospital four years later. Léa was given a ten-year
sentence; when she was released in 1943, she went to live
with her mother. In an effort to track her down while the
film project was underway, Léa was located living alone
in Le Mans at the age of 88 unable to speak or write due to
a stroke. The tagline of Murderous Maids, "It
wasn't just a crime. It was a crime of passion," hints
at the real story behind the events, namely, the class structure
in France. Because they were born into poverty, they failed
to get an education, and Christine was enraged as her various
employers made fun of her. The shock produced in France by
the murdering maids was that members of the lower class were
not content to keep in their place. A subplot involved the
fact that Léa's mother had total control over her,
including pocketing her salary, so long as she was a minor;
Christine's effort to emancipate her through an action of
a local government official, though clumsy, was unsuccessful.
Retrospectively, the French can reflect that housemaids were
doubtless better treated in France thereafter, psychiatric
defense is now allowed, and parental authority is no longer
so absolute. MH
I
want to comment on this film
