After three decades of films on what he calls "small themes," Chabrol caught a really big one in A Story of Women. This "story" set in Occupation France implies that, for women, fascism is life as usual. This is a film Fassbinder might have made, rich in history's innuendo, down to its blindly narcissistic heroine, Marie, driven by a will she at first skittishly, then boldly acknowledges. It is the perfect role for Isabelle Huppert. A working-class mother, reluctant wife of a vaguely disabled soldier, Marie casually performs an abortion for a desperate neighbor, then figures there is money to be made in "women's business." She takes on more and more clients, and also lets out rooms to prostitutes, surrogates for her transgressive fiscal and sexual desires. But there is no place for narcissism in war, even less for cynicism: Marie will pay the dearest price for these crimes against the state. The film is based on a true story of the last woman to receive capital punishment in France. (JB)