L A PRISONNIÈRE
IN THE MID-1960S, Alfred Hitchcock abandoned a project called
Frenzy — very different from his 1972 film of that title — which would have been his attempt to stay in the ‘mod cinema’ game, fracturing narrative in the manner of Euro auteurs like Michelangelo Antonioni or Jean-luc Godard. One of the reasons Hitch was so self-conscious of his position was that Henri-georges Clouzot had encroached on Hitch’s master of suspense turf with his back-to-back hits The Wages
Of Fear and Les Diaboliques — which prompted the Englishman to get gritty and ruthless with Psycho. Clouzot one-upped his rival for a final time with
La Prisonnière (Woman In Chains), which fulfils Hitchcock’s vision by blending psycho-thriller and experimental drama. It catches its groovy, chilly moment perfectly (and Paris 1968 was nothing else if not a moment), yet also looks fresh 50 years on.
A romantic triangle with a strong kink element, it might also be a sketch for Phantom Thread, The Duke Of Burgundy and even the Fifty Shades franchise. TV researcher Josée (Elisabeth Wiener) lives with bearish kinetic artist Gilbert (Bernard Fresson) but is tempted to join the very precise bondage fantasy charades staged by art dealer Stan (Laurent Terzieff ), sometimes involving model Maguy (Dany Carrel). The fling with ropes turns into something like a conventional affair on a seaside holiday — where Stan even smokes a pipe, smiles and has proper sex with Josée — but she crosses a line by smiling in a photograph and sending a cheerful postcard… bringing about several crises, fights and brilliantly edited suicide attempts, which pay off as one of the lovers winds up semi-comatose, becoming another bizarre exhibit when trussed into an artistic arrangement of splints.
As much about art objects as people, it’s a rare film with a gallery milieu where the exhibition on offer looks as if it’d be interesting to visit. Clouzot explores each character’s personal space in intriguing, inventive ways. Early on, third wheel Gilbert travels by a train while thinking about his work in progress, which involves criss-crossing lattices: the camera assumes his POV as he looks through his fingers at passengers’ clothes, or out of the window at tracks and telephone lines, perceiving moiré effects that feed back into his sculpture. It goes for elliptical, odd-angle eroticism — with vibrant colours for art, clothes and people but a drab, grey-misty backdrop for Paris.
Difficult to see outside France for a long time — like much of Clouzot’s submarine oeuvre — La Prisonnière is currently showing up on UK disc and in revival screenings. With more exposure, its reputation is bound to rise.