Calvaire

At first view, a horror, At the second- story about basic instincts and about the small difference between human and beast. In fact, film about vanity, illusion and reality's ambiguous limit. In essence, a religious movie.

The values of Marc Stevens life are few, mediocre, ordinaries. Nothing very important, nothing special. Powerful taste of job, impressions, and memories of show. He is only shadow of a gray existence, boring and strong. Like many of us. His life's image is the image inside the car. The old lady is a spectator. The sentiments or the passion are not important. So, the punishment is a good solution to end a stupid dream of chimeric glory.

Bartel is, in same time, victim and master. His innocence is charming, his expectation - brave. For him the life has a precious sense and the rules are essence of life. A little man with decent desires. Ordinary people, sensitive and good.

The film is picture of an impact. The impact between two worlds, very different, cruels in special way, the only common element is the form and value of sin.

"Calvaire" presents the heart of world. The heart without glamor, lights, masks or shining skin. Without beautiful illusion and subtle gestures. It is not the wild life or new Lord of the Flies. It is not slice of community's madness. It is only essence of another reality. The reality of cruel gods and perfect faith.

I first saw this in the early 2k on a dvd which I own.

Revisited it recently.

The plot - On a Christmas eve, a singer's van breaks down in a deserted and marshy region. The singer takes refuge in an inn run by a hospitable but creepy innkeeper who became psychologically upset with the villagers after his wife left him. The innkeeper offers to repair the singer's van as a token of brotherhood between professional entertainers.

The next morning when the singer tells the innkeeper that he is going for a walk, the innkeeper suddenly becomes paranoid and aggressive, warning the singer not to go into the nearby village.

The movie has tons of atmosphere but is very claustrophobic, surrealistic n horrifying at times.

The bar scene where outta blue the people starts dancing with one another is downright creepy.

The backwoods village without a single female character and not a single sane male character is an epitome of eeriness.

This was the best film I saw at London's 2004 Frightfest, much better than the over-hyped but ultimately disappointing Haute Tension, the other French language horror entry.

Superficially this is the Belgian take on the "crazed hillbilly" sub-genre of Last House on the Left or Deliverance, but in it's mixture of horror and surreal humor this is closer to something like Roman Polanski's The Tenant. The portrait of an isolated society who lives without women is taken to its logical and often shocking extremes. There is a scene at the local bar which must rank among the strangest and most memorable set pieces in recent years. The film is very atmospheric and the cinematography is stunning. You can almost feel the chill of the winter forest it takes place in.

Hopefully Calvaire (it's English title was The Ordeal when I saw it) will get a proper release in English speaking territories, though I can see that this is a much more difficult sell than the derivative calling card exercise that was Haute Tension.

I wish to start saying, that this movie is definitely not enjoyable at all. By the means of having a great fun time at the movie-theatre.

So if you are mostly to Hollywood-Popcorn-Horror-Flics and that's exactly what you expect of a good movie, do yourself a favor and don't watch CALVAIRE.

If you like European Art-house Cinema and are also devoted to real rough and downbeating horror movies, you should have a closer look at this interestingly done work of Fabrice Du Welz.

The young director puts the viewer always in the middle of what is shown on the screen. The beautiful photographed frames are supported through the high grained film material. It nearly looks like a dokumentary, but without the handhold camera style. No bright colours have been used, the colours even look washed out, slightly fading into grey. So the look is very authentic. The Settings are all natural. There is no artificial studio-stage touch in this movie. No additional lightning seems to be added. This style helps the movie to draw the audience perfect into it. Shot on an aspect ratio of 2.35 : 1, this movie is a real cineatic feast when taking part in a movie theatre presentation. Its frames stand for themselves. The power of the pictures (like paintings) speak a more clearly language than every average dialogue in a Hollywood production does. This is cineastic story telling at its best. I also liked the extremely slow pasted development of the story.

The movie's start-off could be made by FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT. Even the protagonist, Marc Stevens (played by LAURENT LUCAS) reminded me a bit of JEAN PIERRE LEAUD (he portraited the character of Antoine Doinel in 4 of Truffaut's films). He performs a chansons singer, who is about to travel through the country for his next concert to give. Unfortunately his traveling van stops in the middle of nowhere. Not enough to be stucked deep in an unknown forest it is - of course - raining cats and dogs. Guided by a young man, who is searching the forest for his missing dog, Stevens reaches an auberge (motel) by foot. The owner, Mr. Bartel lives all alone in there. The auberge has been closed a long time ago for the public. But the kindly behaving old man has preserved the rooms as they where when guests used to be around. Bartel is a man who seems to earn his living with farming. No other houses are build near his estate. Stevens is offered to stay for the night and Bartel promises to get and repair his broken van the next morning. During the dinner Bartel tells Stevens that he was left by his wife and we feel, that he's still suffering from that loss. He seems to be most happy about that his guest is an artist, acclaiming he was an artist too. Not a singer but a comedian, who even won a price for his humor. By the way, his gone wife had been a passionded artist too, so he tells. After a short performance of Stevens, Bartel begins crying. Bartel is fascinated by the singers passion to his art and becomes very sad due to his lost past in which he obviously still lives (imaginary).

Stevens goes to bed after this conversation, Thinking, he will be able to continue his journey the next day. But his unexpected rest at the auberge will be unwillingly prolonged for a much longer time than he could imagine at that moment.

What happens next is a slow pasted tour de force of pain, agony, fear and hatred in the strangest way ever filmed for the big screen. Including the disturbing sickness of Bartel's mind. But he is not the only weird guy around this area. The most over-the-top portraited hillbillies ever shown up in a movie will appear in the near future to enlight the audience with laughs and - followed up - with the helpless fear of "what will there be next?". Have a seat, take a roller-coaster ride with a movie which leaves the shocks of THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE and STRAW DOGS easily behind. I understand this one as a very, very black comedy which is "enjoyable" for open minded people with a cineastic interest.

There are some things in this movie which may let one think, this is an analogy to the passion of Jesus Christ. Some symbols cannot be overseen. The conversation about passion for the things you do by heart are significant. At the end, all things become clear (I don't want to spoil it here) and the audience is left alone with it. A very long end-credit sequence follows. Like in the movie SEUL CONTRE TOUS (I STAND ALONE/ MENSCHENFEIND) from director GASPAR NOÉ, an open end is presented. In Noé's movie a road is shown, leading to nowhere (or to an unknown future), while in Du Welz' movie we are left alone in a wide opened cold and foggy snow frozen forest area. We listen to the sounding wind. It blows and blows - not willing to end its cruel howling. No music, just the never ending isolation.

If you see this "wonderful" movie you'll remember this howling a long time.

8 out of 10

P.S. please excuse possible spelling mistakes

Wow...the other review is nuts. This movie was fantastic!

I got a chance to thank the director (in french) after the film. The lighting was unbelievable, the acting was great, the directing was great, and the script was fantastic. Definitely not for the weak of stomach...pretty gory and painful at times, but let up with some hilarious moments (ie. the dance). They shot on super 16 which gave it an incredible grainy quality...very 1980s sci-fi/horror (which i liked). It was very dark with extremely high contrast, and some beautiful locations. The end seemed like a bit of a let-down at first, but the more i think about it the more i like it. (won't give it away though).

Suffice to say it was gorgeously shot, great cast/crew, and a interesting take on insanity and love. The director described it as a 'love story'...ermmm...yes? with a crucifixion...and pig buggery...

anyways, I would LOVE to see this get a release (without a re-edit), or at lest a distribution deal. It really deserves it.

-cheers,

claire