The French are, by consensus, masters at making love, wine, and films. Unfortunately, I can only attest to the latter two, but those in themselves provide enough worldly pleasure to make them criminal in more than a few societies. Since we are at liberty to indulge, I suggest a glass of Bordeaux and two films by Gallic auteur Claude Chabrol, both featuring actor Isabell Huppert. The two works were produced almost three decades apart, and are testament to the long and fruitful working relationship between the actor and the director.

Violette, based on the true story of a notorious crime occurring in 1930s France, deals with a young girl (Huppert), who from age 12 displays an unusual degree of deviant and rebellious behavior. At home she is reasonably compliant with the puritanical norms imposed by her parents. But in surreptitious visits to Paris’ Latin Quarter, her actions fall somewhere between those of a vamp and a prostitute.

If you have never heard of this infamous crime (most Americans haven’t), the purposeful lack of specificity in Chabrol’s narrative leads us to believe that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. Most available news accounts suggest that Violette was incontestably guilty. Chabrol’s fly-on-the wall perspective omits expository guidance, suspending us by inconclusive and conflicting evidence. It makes for a very accomplished if somewhat dark and moody picture.

In Comedy of Power, made 28 years later, both Chabrol and Huppert have matured, the director having acquiesced slightly to commercial pressures, but still building his suspense through deft insinuation and nuance. The actress has simply refined her more than ample and singular talent.

She plays a magistrate in the French judicial system, who takes her job seriously, and — even more confounding for her superiors — literally. To her this means taking on the blatant corruption infecting government at almost every level. As bright as she is, she appears genuinely oblivious to the toes on which she steps, no matter that the footsteps lead back to those who pay her salary. And when she does become aware of the hostilities aroused by her investigation, she remains indifferent.

The familiar subplot to this narrative is the judge’s suffering marriage due to her obsessive allure to the game of cops and robbers. Chabrol refreshes this hackneyed police-drama storyline, bringing a novel approach to this threadbare theme.

Comedy of Power is a reconfirmation of the skill of an artist who has served the world of film for over four decades. While his work will never pass muster with the Hollywood focus groups, that is one sign of his artistic integrity.