Isabelle Adjani: Mia Baran

Diabolique

Mia Baran

Nicole: [It's a quiet night and Nicole, drinking something in a cup, is looking Mia lighting candles in an open-air altar of the school] What do your saints say?
Mia: I'm brooding. I'm not praying.
Nicole: Lost your faith, ah? I've never really had any to begin with, I guess. Never believed in any of it. God, the Virgin Mary, that life begins at 40... and the people are all just basically good inside.
Mia: Pretty soon we'll be the same person.
Nicole: See how nice things turned out?
[She stops talking and seems to meditate briefly about something important]
Nicole: I'm going inside.
[about Mia's changing the terrible diet his husband used to martyrize the whole school before he was killing by Nicole and her]
Nicole: You know? It wasn't too smart changing the food like that, he never would've done that if he was alive.
Mia: What is the point in killing him then? I like making it better for the boys.
Nicole: [She starts to leave the place] Still, if it's all the same with you I'd rather not hang for fried chicken.
Mia: Nicole, why did you kill him?
[Nicole stops, with her back to Mia and staring at her above her shoulder]
Mia: You could've left him. You could've left here.
Nicole: I was understimated.

Nicole: Killing him is a good thing. Like planting a tree.
Mia: Maybe there is a God.
Nicole: What are you talking about?
Mia: I haven't believed fot so long... So when the pool was empty I thought: maybe there is a God. And He knows what we did. And He's coming for us.
Nicole: It's not God, Honey. That's a lady detective with one breast.
Mia: You're always laughing at me. So was Guy. He must be laughing now.
Nicole: I'm not laughing at you, Mia.
Mia: You are. A little. Inside. It's lonely without God, isn't it?
Nicole: It's just lonely... Period.

Mia: I'm not gonna be able to do this.
Nicole: Well, I suggest you try. It isn't like you burnt the toast, Mia. You killed your husband. It's all off the chart demerit-wise. Understand?
Mia: You are so calm. Look at you. Your hair is done. You've got makeup on.
Nicole: This is a day like any other day. We did what we have to do and it's done. Ok? It was self-defense. You've been taking it fot too long and you finally said fuck off. Good for you. Fuck him. Fuck them.
Mia: Everything but fuck you.
Nicole: Roughly. Now, come on!
[clapping her hands like a teacher to a pupil]
Nicole: Places!

Mia: [the ex-nun defies] I can go to the police. I can tell them what we did.
Nicole: What YOU did.
Mia: We both did it.
Nicole: Yeah, well. I don't think they'll see that as beneficial to me. They'll say the wife gets the school, the money, his investment, her freedom... And what did the other woman get?
[Significative silence]
Nicole: Nothing. That's how they'll look at it.
Mia: [Coming very close to Nicole, with complicity] I'll say we were lovers.
Nicole: Well. You can take the girl out of the convent.
Mia: I thought we had the same reason.
Nicole: We did have the same reason
[as for the money Mia has just found out that Guy cheated Nicole]
Nicole: I just had an extra one
[Caressing Mia with cherish]
Nicole: I'm sorry I lied to you. I couldn't do it now.
Mia: If you hadn't found this... you'd killed the one person who could have told you where it was.
Nicole: He said we were partners. And then he acted alone
[She kisses softly Mia on her neck]