until the early 1980s. “The Greatest Love of All Time”
(L’Amour monstre de tous les temps, 1977, 10m) is a portrait of the Serbian surrealist Ljubomir Popovic.
“Scherzo Infernal” (1984, 5m) would prove to be the director’s final short film, a sexually explicit car- toon involving angels and devils—produced, like his first and penultimate works, by Anatole Dauman. Borowczyk’s approach to the short film, wildly diverse both in terms of style and content, is per- fectly summarized by Daniel Bird: “Borowczyk’s early shorts exhibit a strong preoccupation with not just sights, but sounds and textures. Complement- ing this fascination with matter is a ghostly pres- ence that is neither benign nor malevolent. Equal parts artist and inventor, Borowczyk’s true vocation was as a magician. He was an animator in the pro- found sense, in that he instilled the inert with life.” Borowczyk’s first feature-length film, THEATRE OF MR. AND MRS. KABAL (Théâtre de Monsieur et Madame Kabal, 77m 5s) began life as the short film “The Concert.” When plans for a series fell through, the script was re-developed and expanded, allowing the director greater scope for his unique approach to animation, storytelling and sound de- sign. Borowczyk’s stories are frequently unconven-
tional and this “hommage to women” is no exception, offering a strange but witty examination of the life of an oddly matched couple who exist in a harsh wasteland. Featuring a series of live-action inserts involving a bearded gent surrounded by a suc- cession of beautiful women, together with medical documentary footage from Igor Barrére and Etienne
Lalou’s award-winning 1963 short Corps profond (“Exquisite Corpse”), THEATRE OF MR. AND MRS. KABAL would prove to be Borowczyk’s only ani- mated feature, which is unfortunate as he clearly had much more to offer the world of animation. The extras consist of a short introduction by Terry Gilliam; “Film Is Not a Sausage” (28m), a documentary on Borowczyk’s career as an anima- tor, with contributions from André Heinrich (who describes the Pole as “a genius”) and producer Do- minique Duvergé-Ségrétin; “Blow Ups” (4m), which spotlights Borowczyk’s drawings, lithographs and poster designs; and, most intriguing of all, a trio of animated commercials—“Holy Smoke” (1963, 9m),
“The Museum” (Le musée, 1964, 1m) and “Tom Thumb” (Le petit Poucet, 1964, 1m)—which tran- scend their mundane subject matter (cigars and
pasta) in such a delightful manner, they deserve to be ranked alongside the director’s more recognized and acclaimed works. The set is rounded off by a 31-page illustrated booklet containing essays by Daniel Bird, Peter Graham, and Patrice Leconte (di- rector of THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE, 1999), a
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reversible sleeve showing Borowczyk’s original poster design for THEATRE OF MR. AND MRS. KABAL, and a selection of contemporary reviews (John Coleman, writing for THE NEW STATESMAN in May 1968, describes Borowczyk’s debut feature as being reminiscent of “Max Ernst with a migraine”). Despite being screened theatrically at 1.66:1, THEATRE OF MR. AND MRS. KABAL is here en- larged to 1.37:1 to correspond with Borowczyk’s initial preference. Sound and picture quality are consistent across the board. The prints are sourced from the original 35mm materials and look espe- cially fine, although some of the Eastmancolor pro- ductions (eg. “Gavotte”) reveal the occasional scratch and speckle. The audio is 1.0 mono with optional English subtitles.
OTO, ISLE OF LOVE is the film that firmly established Borowczyk as a dazzling force in world cinema. It opens with a literal confirmation of its title, as a couple—revealed later to be Glossia (Ligia Branice), the beautiful wife of Governor Goto III, and Lt. Gono (Jean-Pierre Andréani, later to appear in Just Jaeckin’s THE STORY OF O, 1975), ap- pointed by the Governor to tend his stables—are shown in a passionate embrace. Goto (note how the names conform to the letter “G”), is an island removed from both time and reality following an earthquake in the 19th century. A schoolteacher (Fernand Bercher) displays a portrait of Goto III (EYES WITHOUT A FACE’s Pierre Brasseur) to the pupils in his class; when he asks three of them to identify him, they each give a different answer. An optical effect creates the impression that the boys, who are positioned at different areas in the room, are seeing the portraits of Goto I and Goto II, re- spectively. This is how Goto appears to us, the au- dience, throughout the course of the film, a world which isn’t quite what it seems, somewhat awry but still tangible.
G
Public executions are provided as a form of public entertainment. Offenders are often encouraged to fight to the death rather than be guillotined, with the victor receiving a pardon from the Governor. One unfortunate criminal, Grozo (Guy Saint-Jean), begs for mercy from Glossia and Goto III, and is rewarded with three offices: keeper of the Governor’s dogs, killer of flies (the island is swarming with them) and cleaner of the governing family’s boots. Grozo performs all of these tasks meticulously and his dedication to fly-trapping is admirable (some of the special traps and cages he devises were designed and built by Borowczyk himself), but he soon be- comes obsessed—not only with Glossia but with elevating his own position, going so far as to
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