Film > Drama

One of the most fascinating films in the entire AFT Collection The Miads is a controversial work by notorious light-fingered novelist/poet/thief Jean Genet (Querelle). In The Maids, Genet creates a surreal and illusory world, dealing unsentimentally with society's outcasts. The plot is roughly based on the Papin sisters - real life murderous maids from the 1930's. Glenda Jackson (Women in Love, A Touch Of Class) is at her sneering finest as Solange, and Susannah York as Claire, (The Killing of Sister George, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) exudes dark sexuality and malevolence. Claire and Solange are the twisted sister maids of the title, working for Vivean Merchant's Madame in a chic Parisian townhouse. The Maids' play-acting slowly reveals dark desires, skewed sexual and class politics and even worse, dementia and murderous intent. With fluid cinematography by the great Douglas Slocombe (Julia, Raiders of the Lost Ark), The Maids is a dangerous and provocative look at the darker recesses of the human soul.