Murderous Maids

More than seventy years on, the case of the Papin sisters, the servants who murdered and mutilated their mistress and her daughter in pre-World War II Le Mans, remains an enigma. Jean-Pierre Denis’s film is the definitive screen version: at once a stunning dramatization of the events leading up to the tragedy, and a compelling interrogation of the class issues that are believed to have contributed to the incident. (Criterion)