Traitement de choc

The curse of French cinema: as it is (heavily) subsidized, people with really original ideas get to shoot them while they are either not necessary talented directors, or not being challenged enough for the ideas to blossom into a great feature.

Shock Treatment is a perfect example. The premise, the synopsis are exciting aplenty, but we only get a pedestrian rendition of it. Basically, apart from the view of Belle-Ile, you would almost be better off reading the summary of the movie instead of sitting through this piece of monotonous movie-making.

Alain Jessua has made some of the most disturbing movies of a generally tame French cinema (mainly in the seventies and early eighties unless some "avant-garde" drivel like "themroc" counts). Barely ten movies in almost forty years.His best works are to be found between 1972 and 1982,his most fruitful decade which begins with "traitement de choc" and encompasses forgotten works such as "les chiens " "Armaguedon" and "paradis pour tous" . "Traitement de choc" is his towering achievement though:and not only because Delon and Girardot are completely naked for one sequence by the sea .There's much more substance to find here.The core of movie is the fear of dying ,and when you see so many people worship their body today,you cannot deny this flick was ahead of its time.

In a strange clinic , doctors Delon and Duchaussoy make people look younger ,thanks to animal cells.That's what they say.Their patients set up a small community of happy few .Girardot who has been ditched by her partner and who comes to think she begins to get old enters the place.Little by little,strange things happen:a lot of the staff (migrant workers) are sent back home because they've got the homesick blues.That's what they say.One of her friend commits suicide because he was broke and could not afford this luxury anymore.That's what they say.The tension increases and in the last fifteen minutes ,"traitement de choc" becomes a true horror film.(One should note it was made the same year as "Solyent Green").

"Traitement de choc" is the selfishness of the bourgeoisie ,the power of money,the eternal dream of perpetual youth which haunts all of us ,man's exploitation of his fellow man (in every sense of the term)."Shock therapy" indeed.

'Shock Treatment' is the quoted translation at the start of this Alain Delon flick, part of the Alain Delon 'Screen Icons' box-set. The title used by IMDb stinks of Carry On innuendo as it belittles a popular sort of subject when it was made in 1973.

Rejuvenation and cosmetic beautification and its perceived ramifications were subjects handled quite a bit by the likes of Michael Crichton and this rather strange brew of beauty and savagery quite neatly stitches these two aspects together.

Annie Girardot plays the retail executive out to get some posh spa treatment at the exclusive resort run by the sinister Dr Devilers (Delon). Amongst the carrot juice cocktails and seaweed scrubs are life- affirming injections, whilst the ever rotating staff of illegally working Portuguese young male staff are despondent for some reason. A fellow patient mysteriously commits suicide and so Girardot goes on the prowl and does some investigating.

The explicit nudity was indeed an eye opener as I was only aware beforehand that it was cert 15 but of course all that frivolity, naturalness and freedom comes at a price. It all becomes nicely sickening the more we know as to how the clinic works and how it gets its medical "powers".

All in all, it's quite fun, suspenseful and macabre but please don't think that it's a cheesy comedy that's only out for cheap laughs that its popular title conveys.

Unbelievable story and an AWFUL music. But I give it 4 points because Alain Delon's face makes it possible to watch this ridiculous film

Watching movies from the 70s can be an anthropological exercise. For instance, in those faraway times, people did not wear safety belts in cars. In fact they even sat on the rear body of convertibles.

They also bathed naked and we were allowed to see both male and female naked bodies, even getting glimpses of Delon's jewels.

With all this in display the plot take back stage, also because by now we saw it many times already. Girardot is a rich businesswoman who wants to ty a rejuvenating, expensive and secret treatment in a creepy clinic by the sea (nice landscape, though).

Delon is the mysterious doctor who manages the clinic. Add the Portuguese young members of staff who disappear one by one, do the math and you'll probably guess what's going on long before Girardot.