Notorious Borowczyk film, often dubbed 'art porn'; its infamous reputation is derived from prolonged scenes in the woods where the beast graphically despoils the maiden. None of this is coy or erotically suggestive, at some point a malformed penis ejaculates in front of the camera.But that vision is properly internal, a sexually-charged dream. The girl who's having it has been brought in a lavish mansion to marry the son of an aristocrat. There is no love between them, not even the chance to tease it out. It's all a ploy devised from the parents, both driven by ulterior motives.It is all a maddening, feverish coupling between these two notions; animal impulse seething deep inside the soul and how far social appearances, the world of organized cruelties, can be bent to mask or sublimate the impulse in more acceptable games of power or money.So this is the monster's function, a monster nurtured with the bile of emotional pains. It articulates purely in terms of images about a state of mind. Structurally however, it's all dependent on how well the filmmaker can shift this internal vision around in the level of reality in order to probe into those unspoken corners of the soul that elude us in real life. Cronenberg and Zulawski - another Polish expat - both went on to deliver similar but better films because they had a grasp of this; the monster itself was our in-sight of the inverted world. In The Fly Cronenberg also riffed in and out of the classic Beauty and the Beast story, like Borowczyk does here, but as part of an overall prosthetic worldview powered by a damaged mind. In Possession, even better, every increasingly depraved exchange and utterance was a wound of the heart. Here, the monster stuff is its own secluded world.This predates those films, and might have been considered cutting stuff at the time, but is mostly unwieldy now. The greatest contribution of the Polish to cinema is the flow of sliding narratives; there is little of that here, except as we wander around the house and woods. But when we reach the grounds of the mansion, our first sight is of horses coupling.Of course the official representatives from god reach there too late, and only to provide their moral decree.

Here's a curio: a film that takes as its basis not so much Beauty and the Beast (though if you want to read into it that way have at it), but, well, a kind of bestiality. I say 'kind-of' since I'm not totally sure still what the director, Walerian Borowczyk, was really getting at with his story of a woman who comes to a French villa and is set to marry a man, only to have (at least to her) smoking-hot fantasies of a woman getting raped by some beast in the woods fully sexually aroused. He tries to make a story around some of this, mostly involving an old man, the patriarch, trying to keep a family secret under wraps as blackmail from some other old guy in a wheelchair. And meanwhile a woman with two kids that aren't really hers drifts in and out of the house having all-too-brief sex with the black servant.Did Borowczyk really want to set out to make an actual story here with Lucy Broadhurst and her hunger for the "beast", or did he want to make a story out of the corruption and deceit at the house with the centuries-old de l'Esperance? I ask these questions not so much because I don't entirely know the answers but because the film doesn't give me a reason much to care. Borowczyk can't direct his actors much well for anything, and watching those scenes of dialog plod on- and with the DVD released by C.A.V often the subtitles dip out for long stretches and the English dub track is so horrible as to want to run for the hills- is excruciatingly boring. I didn't give a damn about any one character at all, not even the assumed protagonist, Lucy, or what happened to her sexual longing.The one saving grace of the film could have been the sexuality of it, the eroticism. On this score the director only marginally gets some interest-points. The opening scene sets the theme: horse-sex. Yes, folks, if you ever wanted to see a stud and a mare, this is where to look, technically, legally-speaking. But when it comes time to do metaphor, like with the black servant and the woman and their sex, the comparison is too obvious. There's some fun to be had with the really, really badly costumed beast (is it a dog or bear or wolf or all of the above?) chasing after the 18th century woman Lucy sees in her sex-dream, but not enough to keep it going. Borowczyk is probably more comfortable directing actual pornography - later credits include Emmanuele - and so when trying to do a scene that is meant to be scintillating, it barely passes by (better is seeing Lucy try on a see-through blouse).

Regardless of what personal opinion one may have of Walerian Borowczyk grotesque yet beautiful gem "La bête" of 1975, one has to admit that this bizarre gem is an absolutely unique cinematic experience. Borowczyk erotic fairy tale was banned in several countries for a long time, and it is quite obvious why this controversial gem fell victim to stuporous film censors. "La bête" is a fascinating blend of intense and beautiful fairy-tale-like atmosphere, quite explicit eroticism and genuine weirdness that bravely refuses to take any compromise. The fact that beastiality (of sorts) is one of the film's central themes did certainly not help it with the censors, but it made it highly controversial and therefore known to a wider audience.Pierre de l'Esperance (Guy Tréjan), the head of a French aristocratic family, has arranged for his somewhat demented son Mathurin (Pierre Benedetti) to marry Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel), the young and beautiful daughter of a wealthy English family. Due to an old curse, Mathurin's uncle (Marcel Dalió) is strictly against the wedding. When Lucy and her mother arrive at the French estate, Lucy immediately gets fascinated with a portrait of the 18th century ancestor Romilda (Sirpa Lane), and with an old book depicting bizarre drawings. The story soon descends into a bizarre sexual fever-dream... Without giving away too much, I can say that fans of exceptional cinema should not consider missing this film. As bizarre as it is, "La bête" is doubtlessly also stunningly beautiful in style, settings and cinematography. The fever-dream-like atmosphere is present within- and out of dream-sequences. The forest estate and the imposing family mansion are magnificent settings, and the beautiful score and incredible cinematography build an overwhelming atmosphere for this grotesque tale. The very explicit sexuality ranges from erotic (elegant female nudity, ravishing actresses) to seriously demented and even somewhat disgusting (close-ups on horses' genitalia while having intercourse,...); in either case it is not likely to be forgotten. The entire cast of "La bête" is fantastic and all involved deliver great performances in eccentric characters (some of which are seriously demented). The film profits from an exceptionally beautiful cast, be it Lisbeth Hummel in the lead, Finnish actress Sirpa Lane (who sadly died of Aids in 1999) as the ancestor in the dream-sequences, or the relatively unknown but particularly ravishing actress Pascale Rivault, who plays the aristocratic daughter who takes ever opportunity to have sex with a black servant in a cupboard.I am intentionally not giving a full description of the most important parts of the plot as they simply have to be seen to be believed. Some scenes are among the most bizarre ever caught on film, the scenes with the eponymous 'beast' definitely being among them. Certainly not everybody's cup of tea, but very highly recommended to fans of controversial and unusual cinema. A true cult gem!

I saw this film in a London cinema in 1975 and have not seen it since. I found it hilarious. I loved it's originality. It's rare that someone MAKES a movie like this - and it's sad too.What I mean is, I once read a book called "The Black Hotel" - and as a film-fan, I always "picture" books as films. Kinda "adapt" them, you know? But as I read it, I thought, well, this would make a great movie - but of course it would have to be "adapted" - to the point where it would bear little relationship to the book.But then I thought, well WHY? Sure, it could never be shown on Sunday afternoon TV, but provided it were shown in cinemas to ADULTS, who knew what it contained, where's the HARM? Dammit, my civil liberties were being crushed here. A director SHOULD be able to make a literal film adaptation of "The Black Hotel".In an ideal World, censorship of films for adults should not EXIST. But sadly, whilst I accept that with INTELLIGENT adults, such freedom might be harmless, there would always be those who would lack the rationality to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and who might be spurred on to commit foul deeds.However, it's hard to see how "La Bete" falls into that category.On it's appearance in England, the British censor dismissed it out of hand. Despite the '69 relaxation on nudity, given the film's theoretical theme of bestiality, had the censor passed ANY of it, he'd have been looking for a new job on Monday.BUT... in those days, there was an alternative. The G.L.C. This was a local town council with a department who had the power to pass a film just for London, where it was deemed audiences were more "sopisticated" than those who lived out in the sticks.The film was duly submitted and PASSED. However, it later emerged that the "board" consisted of just four people - three who voted, plus a "chairman". And on the day, one of the voters was off sick. Thus the remaining two voters and the chairman sat down to view "La Bete".One of said voters thought, like me, that the film was hilarious and hardly likely to encourage foul deeds by ANYONE. The other lacked imagination and simply thought the piece disgusting. And the chairman didn't understand it, so decided to err on the side of FREEDOM.When the missing voter finally saw the film, they too thought it disgusting, but it was TOO LATE! The film had received its "X-London" certificate and opened to mixed reaction. The G.L.C. film censorship board was disbanded soon after! Thus "La Bete" only opened in London by what could best be termed a FLUKE! But I'm glad it was. It's GREAT! If you haven't seen it, DO so. It's a FANTASY, and as such, it's far less disturbing than most things you see on the news these days...