LA
BETE
DVD
Region 2. Nouveaux Pictures
Lucy
Broadhurst (Sirpa Lane), an heiress betrothed to the son of
an impoverished Marquis, arrives at the family's crumbling chateau
and learns of a mythical ursine beast purported to prowl the
nearby forest. It is fabled that a former lady of the house
(Hummel) once engaged in coitus with the creature and Lucy finds
herself consumed by dreams of the incident.
Perverse
yet compelling, one can see why alarm bells reverberated through
the corridors of the BBFC back in 1975, when the "C" still stood
for Censorship. However, that it took over a quarter of a century
for this minor French erotic masterpiece to appear in its uncut
form is preposterous. Sure, there's implied bestiality, assault
and perversion in the priesthood, copious fake ejaculate smeared
on bared breasts, masturbation with a rose and, most graphic
of all, the eponymous beast toying with a phallus so phenomenal
that even John Holmes would blush. Yet it's all so inoffensive,
over-the-top to the point of comic lunacy in fact, that one
can only pity the po-faced collective that must have haunted
the BBFC back in the 70s. Shots of Lisbeth Hummel losing her
clothes as she's chased through the woods by the hirsute beastie
(basically a man in a cheap-looking bear suit) echo the saucy
postcard antics of Benny Hill.
There's
more than a snifter of Carry On country manor farce to
the proceedings too, with a collection of characters that includes
a dissolute priest (Roland Armontel), a nymphomaniac daughter
(Pascale Rivault), a dullard son (Pierre Benedetti), an over-sexed
footman (Hassane Falle), a dotty uncle (Marcel Dalio) and a
starchy patriarch (Guy Trjan) trying to maintain a facade of
normality so as not to scare off their meal-ticket. And the
final revelation of the son's dark genetic secret is a 24-carat
howler.
Audacious, tasteless, unhinged and provocatively fetishistic,
director Walerian Borowczyk offers up one taboo tableau after
another, culminating with the aforementioned assault during
which the insatiable Hummel kills her attacker through sexual
exhaustion. Trouser-tightening for men, undercarriage-warming
for women, La Bete is that truly rare beast: An erotic
film that is genuinely erotic.
For Borowczyk enthusiasts who have only ever seen censored versions,
released as The Beast on an nth generation VHS, Nouveaux
Pictures' uncut, widescreen enhanced DVD is a sumptuous, unparalleled
treat. The feature shows only marginal signs of print damage.
It's presented in a mix of French and English languages, with
burnt-in subtitling in English where applicable. Where the supplemental
material is scant, it's saved from being disappointing by the
inclusion of an unexpected bonus. Overlooking the gallery of
still images (barely a dozen, and these only screen-grabs) and
the lightweight Borowczyk biography, the focal point is the
inclusion of a twenty one minute segment from the director's
Immoral Tales, The Tide, in which a young
man (Fabrice Lucchini) takes his teenage cousin (Lise Danvers)
to the seashore where, at the foot of the cliffs, as the incoming
tide rages, he introduces her to the art of performing fellatio.
It's all slightly ostentatious but in Borowczyk's hands still
heaves with sensuality.
TIM GREAVES
BUY
IT NOW
