Mascara

Look, I'm not suggesting Mascara is an even vaguely good film, but... who cares, it's a classic sample of Eurotrash culture. Another masterpiece from the "quality" merchants at Cannon film, I'm just surprised it hasn't found a solid cult audience in the midnight movie circuit or 1980's retro sleaze market(uh, is there such a market?).

It has Charlotte Rampling, queen of Eurotrash (remember the Night Porter?) who, oddly enough, has the most "straight" role here. As usual, she channels Lauren Bacall (good looking woman, she), and gets through a fairly lackluster part. She's always better than her material and wears some very stylish togs for someone who just works as an interpreter. Michael Sarazin, former pretty boy and Jacqueline Bisset boyfriend (he was in a good tv version of Frankenstein) is now a little long in the tooth, but still has a striking appearance and soulful eyes. Here he's a somewhat unbelievable Police Superintendent and has some wild scenes that come off... shall we say, a trifle campy. Derek de Lint (from Unbearable Lightness of Being, a fav film of mine) is a heterosexual costume designer for the opera. De Lint, a popular star in European film, must have taken this part for the money. He's mostly a foil for Sarazin and love interest for Rampling.

But there's more. Next we have cult performer Romy Haag (a well known transgender artiste from the 70's through 90's, friend of Bowie's, etc.) as the madam-manager of an underground club where closeted bigwigs go to hear drag queens, etc. lip sink to opera (yes, when there's operatic music that's a sure sign of Eurotrash). Topping it off is the gorgeous Eva Robin's (that's how her name is usually spelled), Italian transgendered star of music, tv, fashion and film as a character with the absurd name of "Pepper". Now Robin's is about as unlikely a "Pepper" as I've ever encountered. She looks gorgeous and has a scene that prominently displays her manhood front and center. This was a good 5 years before the Crying Game. Shameless exploitation? ... you bet. But what happens next is a shocking reminder of how much violence there really is against transgendered people and how it's often reported with a kind of titillation rather than as a human rights issue. The cinematography and mood in this film are striking, even as the script and some of the acting are laughable. It all made me want to take a trip to Europe, wear something fashionable and walk around some nameless urban landscape late at night looking for a niteclub to go to as blue signs flash "cambio, wechsel, change."

Mascara could be a good date movie, if you're dating someone with really sleazy, bizarre tastes. I found it infinitely more entertaining than Showgirls, and look how beloved that flick has become since it had its initial flush down the toilet?

For a nominal "suspense" film, this provides precious few thrills. The romantic subplot involving wimpy, neurotic Charlotte Rampling and the less-than-compelling Derek de Lint goes nowhere. Pointless fantasy sequences are introduced, and the backstory relating to the serial killings of the local drag population is never developed.

On the plus side, the cinematography is a treat-- long moody sequences shot in a half-empty Belgian seacoast resort. And this is, after all, the film that pioneered the "Crying Game" scene-- reason enough to see it, in my book.

So imagine if Bob Guccione kidnapped Werner Schroeter, forced him onto a diet of magic mushrooms, and at a point of a gun and with the regular administration of scopolamine put him to work making a serial killer movie. That's Mascara.

I actually can't believe I just watched that movie. I had an odd defeated day, and I got some Mazarin Omnipollo beer in (tastes as good as it sounds) and knew I needed to see something off the chain. I hadn't figured out how far off the chain this movie was, psychologically it was like being in an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon watching this movie. In my long film watching experience it has set a new high watermark for the bizarre. Carlo Ponti famously exclaimed "What?" when he saw a film Polanski made that was then in homage called "What?". But Polanski was a mere amateur at confusion compared to Patrick Conrad, the director of Mascara.

Police superintendent Bert Sanders (Michael Sarrazin) is an opera maven, and regularly attends with his sister Gaby Hart (Charlotte Rampling). There is more than a small hint that these two have a closer relationship than is recommendable between siblings. Sanders, in his late 40s, lives in with sis, and has massive problems with sublimated desire and sexual confusion. He visits a secret underground club where leading citizens dress in black tie, and watch drag queens lip sync Strauss and Gluck as well as pop music (including a Kris Kristofferson song). There's also some highly stylised S&M going on in antechambers. He's in a chaste relationship with a transsexual girlfriend who does cabaret at the club. When she comes onto him, all hell breaks loose, the tonne of psychosexual gelignite in his head blows sky high and he spends the rest of the movie alternating between catatonia and psychosis, digging himself in deeper whilst covering his tracks and trying to stop his sister getting with the dressmaker for the local opera house.

Parts of the movie have genuine pathos and are tres trans sympatico, but others seem almost hideously exploitational. The impression comes across that Partick Conrad is messing with you with some of the twists, like an experiment in blowing the viewer's mind.

And you know Charlotte Rampling is in the midst of all this acting her skin off at points. Unbelievable. She was not afraid of appearing in off the charts projects for sure, The Flesh of the Orchid is another superb example (no way could she have pretended that she was off for a straightforward gig with that one, not when James Hadley Chase wrote it!!!).

Wanna get unhinged? Put on some Mascara baby.

The movie starts with Gaby (Charlotte Rampling) driving, and she nearly runs over a man who was crossing the street. They exchange some words, but seem to take a liking to each other.

She meets up with Bert, a police superintendent; they're both dressed in formalwear. He stops at a crime scene that is particularly seedy. A dingy apartment, with a partially clothed dead woman in a bathtub full of water. The police on the scene think it was a suicide, but Bert points out it had to have been a murder. This death has no connection (that I'm aware of) to anything else in the movie, except to set the stage for the seediness to follow.

Bert and Gaby proceed to the opera, for which he has a great liking (along with white dresses). In the opera, the female lead playing Eurydice wears a sparkly white dress with lights beneath the cloth forming a large blinking red heart. Bert is absolutely captivated by the dress.

Bert insists on meeting the designer of the dress backstage, and it turns out to be Chris, the man Gaby almost ran over. Gaby and Chris become even more smitten with each other.

Bert persuades Chris to let him borrow the dress for a special friend. Chris goes along on the provision that he gets to do the dressing and undressing, thinking the friend is Gaby. Bert takes him to a well-hidden underground opera S&M club, populated by wealthy men and quite a lot of transsexuals. Performers lip-synch to opera songs. Gaby is not there, but Bert's love Pepper. A death occurs, and although Chris is innocent of it, it looks like the blame will fall on him, particularly when Bert forces Chris to make repeat visits to the club. Meanwhile, Chris and Gaby try to strengthen their relationship, which Gaby finds hard to do.

It was a pretty good movie, well-made. I'm sure the transsexual club limits its appeal, and be forewarned that there is some full-frontal male/female nudity - yikes....

I saw this when it came out 20+ years ago and it stuck with me. On second viewing, it's a camp classic. What makes a cult film? It's intangible, but odd flourishes like dubbing the child's voice with an adult's, or the bevy of sinister transvestites, contribute greatly. Charlotte Rampling is beautiful and tortured. She also wears some really great Claude Montana outfits. Michael Sarazin plays her brother and though they grew up together as children, they have completely different accents. The best scenes are in the club, which is a delicious blend of cabaret/new wave/opera with a decadent Eurotrash clientèle. You will rewind a lot. There are plot twists and a glow-in-the-dark dress. This movie deserves a second life, have fun.

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