La prisionera

Clouzot's last film, (and his only completed film in colour), takes him, perhaps, further away from the mainstream than almost anything he had done previously and this, being the late sixties, allowed him a much greater freedom of expression in terms of content. "La Prisonniere", or "Woman in Chains", may not be the late masterpiece some might have hoped for but it certainly didn't deserve its fate of almost disappearing from view entirely. It's not really a thriller but a tale of obsession as artist's wife and television journalist Elisabeth Wiener develops an unhealthy attachment to art dealer Laurent Terzieff after catching husband Bernard Fresson being unfaithful; (she's also doing a documentary on women being abused). Its setting also gives Clouzot the opportunity to indulge his passion for art in all its glorious forms and seldom has a director dipped into colour so imaginatively first time out; this is a fabulous looking film.

Its languid pace may dissipate its potential for suspense but as a tale of a sadomasochistic relationship it does exert a creepy fascination that says as much about Clouzot as any of his previous films, more so in fact; this is confessional cinema at its most extreme which probably accounts for its failure. Had he lived and had the studios let him I can see Hitchcock going down the same road, ditching suspense entirely and leaving just the psychology. There is no denying its brilliance but I just wish I could have liked this more. This odd blend of Hitchcock, Bergman, Antonioni and Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" finally bites off more than it can chew.

Elisabeth Wiener is in an open marriage with artist Bernard Fresson. His work is part of an exhibition by art dealer Laurent Terzieff to promote his becoming a 'supermarket of modern art' to sell to all the people who are moving into apartments and need something to put on their walls: lots of kinetic op-art. While Fresso goes off with a drunk art critic to earn better reviews, Mlle Weiner accepts an invitation from Terzieff to see the art he has at home. Surprising to her, there are a lot of primitive native pieces, quite distinct from the sort of thing he sells. He shows her his own artistic side, which is a slide show of words from manuscripts, showing the different way that different writers write 'rien'... and a nude woman in a strikingly submissive position. She leaves, then visits him in his office, where he explains that everyone likes to take orders, to submit, to be relieved of the responsibility of making decisions. First with a model, then on her own, Mlle Wiener returns to Terzieff's apartment, falling in love with him, submitting to him.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's last complete movie is another one in a long series in which he makes it clear he has absolute contempt for humanity. Here he attempts to show us why we are so contemptible, how we fool ourselves into degradation, how we excuse ourselves, and fool no one but ourselves. His technique here is a lot colder than when he began to do this in the 1940s. It looked to me as if this was his reaction to Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM except he offers no excuses, no reasons why people are the way they are. He just shows them as he sees them, and allows us to draw our own conclusions.

La Prisonniere tells the story of Stan, a man fascinated by the concept of submission and his experimentation with his own capacity to dominate. He manifests this fascination through photographing women as he instructs them to undress. When the rather conservative Jose decides she would like to pose for him she finds herself caught in a tormenting struggle between the shame and the pleasure she experiences through the act of submission. Here the film analyses the relationship between voyeur and 'viewed', which at first is hindered by her fear and instinctive prudence but later softens into mutual respect and affection. From the outset women are portrayed as sexual objects as Stan fingers his naked dolls in the opening credits in the same way as he poses his models, as if inanimate. However the images of naked women seen throughout, as well as Stan's treatment of his models, are essentially respectful and adoring rather than degrading. The extended motif of repetition, presented in the pattern and movement of the artwork, reflections in mirrors and the process of reproduction suggested by the photos and the printing press, emulate the intensity and invasiveness of Stans voyeurism. At the same time the optical illusions, played on the the gallery scenes, coupled with their emotive sound effects seem to hint at Jose's mental and emotional confusion towards her role as the servile model. The character of Stan is overtly sexual in his masculinity, authority and seemingly in his mere presence as he appears to cause Maguy to climax during her photo shoot. While he is tender and genuine in his love for Jose, he remains dominant and in control by not letting on to her. I found this film beautiful to watch despite its disturbing subject matter and I believe it is an emotive representation of how women can be tortured as well as gratified through both their sexual oppression and freedom.

This bizarre opus from Henri-Georges Clouzot has certainly divided opinion, described by some as profound and considered by others to have tarnished this great director's reputation. For this viewer at any rate it is technically accomplished and beautifully shot by Andréas Wilding but remains a rather cold, empty and indeed impotent enterprise that I felt obliged to watch but have not the least desire to revisit.

The master/slave relationship between the bored Josée of Elisabeth Wiener and Laurent Terzieff's disturbed Stanislas gradually turns to a seemingly genuine love but of course in Clouzot's world there is no such thing as a happy ending.........

The erotic element is supplied by the exotic Dany Carrel who was to have featured in 'L'Enfer'. In 'test shots' for that sadly aborted film Clouzot's camera lingers tantalisingly on her cleavage and here he is able to indulge himself more fully. There are those who will find her gyrations in a plastic mac to be either physically arousing or laughable.

Having been denied the chance to realise a psychedelic sequence in 'L'Enfer', the one he has given us here is truly outstanding but Kubrick had just beaten him to it. Likewise the connection between photography and voyeurism had already been handled to great effect by Powell and Antonioni whilst Bunuel's study of sexual fantasy from the previous year was balanced by that director's customary dark humour.

Always plagued by ill health, this was to be Clouzot's swansong and one is intrigued as to where he would have gone from here and how much further his misanthropy would have taken him had he continued filming. By all accounts a softcore porn film was mooted in the mid-seventies which would seem a natural progression.

La prisonnière was HG Clouzot's final film and his only in colour. It tells the story of a young female film editor who meets an art dealer via her relationship with an abstract artist. She discovers he photographs erotic pictures of women. Partially appalled, partially intrigued she becomes hooked on his voyeurism and becomes one of his subjects. Its story focuses on themes of submission and dominance, with all three central characters at war with one and other to some extent.

I don't think the message was necessarily altogether clear at times and I think something must have been lost over the years in terms of the shock we are meant to feel at the erotic material. From the perspective of nowadays in the free-for-all that is the internet age, those images that presumably would have caused some shock back in 1968 seem actually quite quaint by today's anything-goes standards. So you do sort of have to remind yourself that this was a very different world back then in order to understand aspects such as this. I felt on the whole that the story seemed a bit under-developed and not entirely satisfying but what certainly did not disappoint me was the visual aesthetics on display. Considering this was Clouzot's only colour movie, it does have to be said that he embraces the medium in a pretty full-on way. The use of colour is rather splendid throughout. The early gallery scenes are visually delightful with much abstract, expressionistic and pop art imagery present throughout, all beautifully framed, while the closing psychedelic hallucination sequence was a mesmerizing example of visual artistry. So, for me at least, this is a film which is mostly of interest from an aesthetic point-of-view as opposed to a dramatic one. It definitely felt like the work of a young director, as opposed to a veteran, and so indicates the boldness that Clouzot had even in his final years. It's the sort of material that someone like Claude Chabrol could easily have been tackling at the time, except Clouzot's film is visually much more out there than anything that young new wave director every delivered. On the whole, this is a pretty impressively uncompromising bit of cinema for Clouzot to bow out on and is certainly one that should be of interest for anyone interested not only in French cinema of the period but of counter-cultural time-capsule movies as well.