THE BEAST
France, 1975
Original title: La Bête
Director: Walerian Borowczyk. Screenplay: Walerian Borowczyk. Art director: Alain Guillé. Cinematographer: Bernard Daillencourt, Marcel Grignon. Editor: Walerian Borowczyk. Costume designer: Piet Bolscher. Cast and characters: Sirpa Lane (Romilda), Lisbeth Hummel (Lucy Broadhurst), Elisabeth Kaza (Virginia), Pierre Benedetti (Mathurin de l’Esperance), Roland Armontel (Priest), Marcel Dalio (Duc Rammendelo), Robert Capia (Roberto). Production: Argos Films. Length: 94’.
Format: Bluray. Under licence from Umbrella.
Original version. Subtitles: English
The head of the family of a ruined clan thinks fate smiles on him when the daughter of a wealthy gentleman agrees to marry his son. The young woman then crosses the French countryside with her aunt to join the new family, without knowing what the true nature of her betrothed is.
Less than forty years ago, probably, they were burning the last fires of a “transgression” then defeated by an ebb that would have anaesthetised and trivialised it, to the point of making even the word itself ridiculous. Among the beneficial and unimaginable scandals of the time, those raised by some titles by Walerian Borowczyk (‘Immoral Tales’, 1974 and ‘The Beast’, 1975) stand out. If Pasolini’s name at the time was already synonymous with transgression, the mysterious and exotic one of the Polish director, exiled in France, immediately became almost as emblematic.
(Cineforum)
Sunday 01 May 2022, h. 12:30 pm