LA B�TE ('The Beast')

Walerian Borowczyk was born in Poland in 1932 and trained as an artist. In the late 40's he began making short animated films, eventually teaming up with another artist, Jan Lenica, and making longer films. In 1968 he made his first feature-length, live action film, GOTO - ISLAND OF LOVE, starring his wife Ligia. In 1971 came his second film, BLANCHE. Borowczyk next began work on a film called 'Une Collection Particuli�re' (1973), a documentary about erotica and featuring many items from Borowczyk's own collection. This short film and LA B�TE were to make up two parts of a five part anthology called 'Contes Immoraux' ('Immoral Tales'). However, when IMMORAL TALES was released the following year, neither film was included. Instead IMMORAL TALES contained four short tales ('The Tide', 'Ther�se the Philosopher', 'Erzebet Bathory' and 'Lucrezia Borgia'), all of which were fairly graphic in their depiction of sexuality. The film was not well received, and was not widely seen until its release last year on DVD by Anchor Bay in the US. Borowczyk had completed the short film 'La V�ritable Histoire de la B�te de G�vaudan' (based on an old French legend) in 1973 (filming having begun in 1972) and it was shown at the 17th London Film Festival in November of that year to some controversy. Borowczyk decided to flesh out this short (which only ran for 18 minutes) to a feature length film called LA B�TE and set about writing a story that would allow him to do this...

The film opens with graphic scenes of horses mating outside of a chateau. Lucy Broadhurst arrives with her Aunt Virginia. It turns out that Lucy is to marry Mathurin, the son of the Marquis de l'Esperance. The Marquis' uncle, the Duke de Balo, does not want the marriage to go ahead, insisting that it will "be the death" of Mathurin. A large inheritance has been left to the family, but it is conditional upon Mathurin marrying within 6 months of the will's execution. The family are in dire straits financially and thus need the wedding to go ahead. However, another condition of the will is that the marriage must be blessed by the Cardinal, who is the Duke's brother. The Marquis blackmails the Duke into arranging for the Cardinal to come and conduct the marriage, telling him that he has proof that the Duke murdered his wife many years ago, after only two months of marriage. Mathurin has not been baptised for some reason that is only hinted at, and so the Parish Priest is called to the house to baptise him. There is a legend surrounding the de l'Esperance family that states that every 200 years a beast will come to the chateau. 200 years ago Romilda de l'Esperance had experienced some unknown terror, and her ripped corset is still kept by the family as testament. The family's black servant is having an affair with the Marquis' daughter Clarisse, and Lucy becomes more and more aroused by certain things and eventually falls into a dream in which she imagines Romilda being pursued by a great hairy beast and eventually being ravished. Meanwhile, events come to a head between the Marquis and the Duke, and one last surprise remains...

When the film was eventually shown, at the 1976 London Film Festival, it was quite a scandal. The distributors cut two minutes of footage from it before submitting it to the BBFC, who refused the film a general certificate. However, James Ferman wrote to the Greater London Council suggesting that the film be shown in London only. The film was indeed passed and caused much debate, and was refused a certificate until earlier this year, when it was shown at cinemas. A censored version of the film, missing the horse copulation scenes and all shots featuring the beast's penis, was retitled 'Death's Ecstasy' and represents the most widely seen English language version of the film. This DVD release marks the first time that the film has been made available on home video in the UK. An American DVD is also been released in November 2001 (by Cult Epics), marking the first time that the full uncut print has been available there also. The American DVD is dubbed into English, whereas the UK DVD is presented with the French track and English subtitles, sadly burnt in. Marc Morris' Mondo Erotico site reports that the print used for these two releases (and the cinema release that preceded them) is missing several minor scenes: i) Ifany (the black servant) sneaking into the bathroom, after Mathurin has been groomed by his father, in order to stuff clumps of Mathutin's hair into an envelope, ii) Ifany bringing the envelope of Mathurin's hair to the Duke's office, where he is dismissed and the Duke sniffs at it, and iii) the cook setting the table whilst singing, prior to the farcical meal that Mathurin, his father and the guests attend. None of these scenes amounts to much in terms of time or importance to the story and it has been suggested that they are now perhaps lost.

Firstly let me state that in my opinion Borowczyk is the most important European director to have worked in the genre of erotic film. Indeed, the only other director I would call comparable within the genre is Radley Metzger, whose films have a very different, though equally important place in history. I regard LA B�TE as one of Borowczyk's best films, and I am really probably not the best person to give it an unbiased appraisal! Many people criticise Borowczyk's films as being too slow moving or too arty (and by extension, pretentious) and I think that LA B�TE is perhaps both Borowczyk's best-paced film, yet also his most arty. The appeal of Borowczyk's films is difficult to convey to the uninitiated or skeptical (like those of Jess Franco, though for very different reasons) but I would have thought that just about everybody would be able to agree that Borowczyk's films are full of beautifully composed imagery and a heady sense of the erotic (and exotic) that are difficult to compare to any other director. Take the strange use of snail imagery in LA B�TE, or the gorgeous final scenes when a great vortex of leaves engulfs the house as Lucy and Virginia flee. I was surprised to read, upon the film's cinema re-release, several reviews in which the authors mocked the beast's appearance. I have always thought that the beast looks surprisingly good and has stood the test of time much better than say, the creature that attacks Luke Skywalker on Hoth at the beginning of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980). The scenes involving the beast's coupling with the girl are still fairly shocking today and it's quite amazing that the film has been granted this uncut release by the BBFC. The creature's prosthetic penis is an especially effective creation, constantly ejaculating gooey liquid and recalling the equine penises glimpsed at the start of the film. The use of a repetitive Scarlatti harpsichord piece during the footage from the short film is another master stroke, fitting the action perfectly and creating a surreal, uneasy feeling. 

Undoubtedly, LA B�TE can be read in many different ways - the title deliberately recalls the story of 'Beauty and the Beast' and the theme also brings to mind other childhood stories, as well as the more sexual aspects of the film, which can be variously argued as being sexist, racist, feminist, etc. It is also very much (like all Borowczyk's major work) both a humorous critique of human nature and a celebration of female sexuality. It is also unique - I can think of nothing in cinema that is comparable and the influence the film has had over the years is indisputable. Borowczyk goes out of his way to offend the audience of the time, starting with the very graphic scenes of the horses mating, and including a paedophile priest, full nudity, inter-racial sex (the white girl looks very young and Borowczyk was even accused of featuring under-age sex in his film), rape fantasies, bestiality, etc. The scenes when the beast chases Romilda through the forest are also deliberately provocative - as the girl runs, she loses more and more of her clothes, eventually running in just a tight corset. The film is full of such imagery and it's a tribute to Borowczyk's bravery and integrity as an artist that he didn't feel compelled to restrain his vision to more palatable and acceptable (not to mention pedestrian) set-pieces.

LA B�TE was produced by Anatole Dauman, the French producer responsible for Nagisa Oshima's equally controversial AI NO CORRIDA ('In the Realm of the Senses') the following year, and Borowczyk's own IMMORAL TALES the previous year. Dauman was one of the few people who has dared to produce 'mainstream' films featuring hardcore/near-hardcore sex (even if it is only prosthetic in LA B�TE) and was a real pioneer of his time, though it hurt his career badly (his career more or less came to a standstill after AI NO BOREI ('In the Realm of Passion') in 1978 and he died in 1998). The actors and actresses in LA B�TE are mainly unknowns, though Elisabeth Kaza has had a long career in French cinema. Borowczyk always uses the same type of girl in his films - thin, long haired and small breasted - and the actresses here are no exception. Borowczyk went on to make quite a few more films, the best known of which are BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (1977), THREE IMMORAL WOMEN (1979) and the demented THE BLOOD OF DR JEKYLL (1981, aka 'Dr Jekyll and His Women'). In 1985 he directed parts of  EMANUELLE 5, losing any last vestige of critical respect. His last completed film to date is 1988's little-seen C�R�MONIE D'AMOUR (aka LOVE RITES), only eventually released in the UK in 1999 by Pagan Films. Most of Borowczyk's work remains extremely difficult to see as the director intended, though GOTO has recently been released on UK VHS and IMMORAL TALES is available on US DVD. 

DVD Specification
Original year of release - 1975
Approximate running time - 94min.
Aspect ratio - Widescreen ~16:9 (1.78:1)
System - PAL (colour)
Rating - 18
Sound - Dolby Digital Mono (2 track)
DVD release - Nouveaux Pictures
Region Coding - Region 0 (code free)

DVD Extras
Borowczyk filmography (as director and writer)
Stills Gallery
Borowczyk short film "La Maree" ('The Tide')

DVD Ratings (out of 5)
Picture - 4
Surprisingly good. The real bonus here is that Nouveaux have given the film an anamorphic transfer, meaning that it is 16x9 enhanced. There is no mention of this fact anywhere on the film's packaging. Also, it is listed as being presented at 15:9 (~1.66:1). In fact, it is more like 16:9 (~1.78:1). Apparently, the US DVD also claims to present the film at 1.66:1 - I haven't seen it so I can't comment on whether the two releases are identical. The image looks clear and vibrant throughout with only the occasional speck and scratch to indicate the film' age. When one considers the film's history and rarity it's amazing that it looks as good as it does here. Very pleasing indeed, and astonishing when one recalls Nouveaux's first DVD releases (the awful SUSPIRIA and TENEBRE transfers). Taken together with their AI NO CORRIDA DVD, I think I can now forgive them for their early transgressions!!! The one criticism here is that the English subtitles are 'burnt in'. This was also the case on their AI NO CORRIDA DVD, and is seemingly a very common practice for UK DVD's of foreign films. The subtitles are excellent though, and even translate the opening Voltaire quote.

Sound - 3
2 track Dolby Digital Mono. This is all we can reasonably expect, and it sounds fine. There's no hiss or distortion and the music sounds suitably crazed. No criticisms here either.

Extras - 2
This is really the only are of the DVD that I would criticise. There is a French trailer for the film and this has not been included here. What we do get is a fairly comprehensive filmography for Borowczyk, both as director and writer. There's also a stills gallery consisting of 10 or so stills. Finally there's a short film. When I first heard that the DVD was to include a short film I presumed that it would be one of Borowczyk's animated shorts or perhaps even 'Une Collection Particuli�re'. In fact what we get is the short film 'La Maree' (='The Tide'), the opening story from IMMORAL TALES. This runs around 21 minutes and is presented at approximately 1.66:1 and subtitled. It doesn't look as good as on Anchor Bay's DVD, though it's not bad either. The problem though is that anyone likely to buy this DVD will almost certainly already own Anchor Bay's DVD, rendering the short's inclusion here somewhat redundant. At least they tried...  One small point: on the extras page, 'filmography' is mis-spelt 'filmograpghy' - a minor criticism admittedly, but this sort of thing really should be picked up at some point during authoring. They also use it's rather than its on the rear cover, yet manage to spell Borowczyk's name correctly throughout!

Overall Rating - 4
An excellent presentation of an excellent film. LA B�TE is a film all cineastes should see, and fans of Borowczyk should be extremely grateful for this chance to add the uncut, subtitled print to their collection. Nouveaux have made quite a big effort with this release, which is only likely to shift small numbers of units, and for this they should be praised. It's unlikely that a better release will come along in the future, so buy it!  Highly recommended. 
Anyone interested in finding out more about Borowczyk's work should visit Marc Morris' excellent Mondo Erotico site here: www.mondoerotico.co.uk

AKA
The Beast
The Beast in Heat
Death's Ecstasy

Alternative versions
As described above, the most commonly seen version of the film in English-speaking countries was the print entitled 'Death's Ecstasy', which was pre-cut by several minutes by its distributor. A French video release containing this excised footage has long been in circulation on the bootleg market, but Nouveaux's DVD represents the first time that the film has been available uncut, with English subtitles, in the West. A US DVD is due to be released on the 27th November 2001 by Cult Epics, but this will be English dubbed and may not be anamorphically enhanced. The print used by Nouveaux is missing three small pieces of footage, as described above.