Herostratus

A somewhat avant-garde and confusing - in the best possible way - drama that has proved itself to be remarkably prescient and another fantastic gem in the BFI's series of British rediscoveries.

Combining satire and tragedy, and starring the brilliant Michael Gothard, this is a blazing account of how acts of genuine rebellion are ultimately destined to be commodified and sanitised and deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience looking for drama presented in an offbeat manner.

The 1960s was a weird time with lots of cultural experimentation. So, as a 20 year old in 1968, I went along to the Manchester Film Theatre to see this British independent avant-garde film with an open mind. I found it one of the strangest movies I'd seen but described it in my diary as "superb" and commented: "I would certainly like to see it again." Yet, for the next 40 years, the film was inaccessible and only in 2007 did the British Film Institute intervene to make it available once more. It took me another five years to rent it via Lovefilm. But, in all that time, the stunning imagery lived with me and in particular I was haunted by a scene towards the end in which a woman (Gabriella Licudi) sobs in despair.

Written and directed by Don Levy, it was the only full-length film he ever made and it is a long (142 minutes) and slow work distinguished by its innovativeness and opacity. The narrative is pretty minimal and therefore can be briefly stated: a very angry young man called Max (Michael Gothard) decides he has had enough of life and offers an advertising company the opportunity to exploit his public suicide. This explains the erudite title: Herostratus was an Ancient Greek arsonist who destroyed the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and his name has become a metonym for someone who commits a criminal act in order to become famous.

The film looks and sounds amateurish and indeed had a tiny budget (but took six years from conception to completion). However, clearly Levy wanted some of the dialogue to be hard to hear and some of the scenes to be difficult to watch. One of the most startling and memorable sequences inter cuts the dancing of a sexy woman with the butchering of a dead animal and one of the most inexplicable (but again memorable) images is of a parasol-carrying woman clad in black with a white face. This is a work full of odd interjections ranging from the voice of the elderly Malcom Muggeridge to a near-wordless burlesque by a very young Helen Mirren in her first film role. There are extracts from semi-contemporary newsreels scattered about the film which seem to be inviting us to question what kind of world we have created.

Seeing "Herostratus" after such a long interval and at the more mature age of 66, I found that I was less tolerant of the pretentiousness of the whole thing but still captivated by the bewildering images. Also I was disturbed to read after the viewing that both the director and the lead actor subsequently committed suicide.

HEROSTRATUS was, sadly, the only feature-length narrative project realized by the remarkable scientist, visual artist, and filmmaker Don Levy. Though little-known and seldom screened, its influence has been greater than one might think and may be visible in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, PERFORMANCE, and perhaps in the early films of Werner Herzog.

The film is remarkable not only for its very high visual quality (often on the level of the best of Antonioni and Tarkovsky) and for its sometimes innovative relations of sound and image, but also for the attitude and working method of the director: a highly personal and historically deeply rooted concept of surrealism, linked to the scientific method, that shapes the stream of consciousness woven into the narrative into something close to visual music.

I had the opportunity to see this film twice in the 1970's, and thirty years later, images are still vividly present. I'll mention just two: first, the black-clad woman (Ines Levy) lighted from behind, face painted white, carrying a black parasol, seen either slowly stalking out of an alley towards the viewer, or standing on a rooftop, viewed from below, recalling for me drawings by Hans Bellmer. Second, the lengthy hyper-violent sequence in which the protagonist demolishes his paraphernalia-packed apartment. A swaying suspended doll stands out within the jagged rhythms of the editing and will much later in the film be flashed into another key sequence: one example for the rich network of associations that go far beyond story-telling structures. On the soundtrack during the demolition: one of the virulent fugues from Beethoven's MISSA SOLEMNIS.

The film's female lead is named Clio, and CLIO is, in Greek mythology, the muse of history.

HEROSTRATUS does have some flaws, but is by any applicable standards a work of depth and integrity. Had it received more extensive distribution, it might have turned out to be a key film of the late 1960's. It's to be hoped that current plans for a commercial DVD release will soon bear fruit and that this film will receive the (belated) recognition that it richly deserves.

10/09

Like others who have written here about HEROSTRATUS, I too saw this amazing and unforgettable film in the early 70's. I have subsequently longed to see it again.

This film is what I like to call "transformative" cinema. Tranformative in the way the films of Bergman, Pasolini, Godard & DaSica can be. You may detest this film. But, you will not easily forget it.

I'd also like to say that if you like the novels of J.G.Ballard, particularly the books of the 70's, you will probably appreciate this film. I've always considered it particularly "Ballardian". This film grabs corporate capitalism by the throat. Yes, it is cynical.

I am happy to report that Herostratus is now available on DVD. It can be obtained at Amazon UK.

Herostratus screened at the Orson Welles theatre in Cambridge (Mass.) for two weeks in (I think) 1968. At a party in New York a few years later, I met the owner of a theatre (I can't recall any names, alas) where it played for three days; he said he detested it and withdrew it.

I have never been more moved by a film. I can compare it only to such transforming experiences as seeing L'Avventura in the early 'sixties, although the art of Herostratus is far more mysterious. The mystery is compounded by the great gulf of years that separates me from that screening, by the fact that almost nobody I meet has seen it or even heard of it, and by the apparent lack of any body of explication and commentary.

Without seeing it again I wouldn't attempt a precis of the plot, but what remains in memory is the cool classicism of the narrative(innocence vs. worldliness and levels of manipulativeness that Henry James might have appreciated) as mediated through an unobtrusive but arresting surrealism of technique.

It's been 35 years--I'd really like to revisit Herostratus.