La marge

LA MARGE by Borowski is a dreamy and trippy film – it is anchored in the reality, but it shows a hidden, subconscious reality. Poetic, dramatic and cool, it features also a good, evocative soundtrack of the 70s.

Sigimond (Joe Dallesandro) is married to Sergine. Sergine is pretty and she lives with Sigimond a fulfilled life, sexually and otherwise. One day Sigimond (Joe Dallesandro) goes to Paris, and by night, in a brothel, he knows a prostitute, Diana (Sylvia Kristel). She will personify the mystery of pleasure – beautiful, delicate and elusive. Diana (Sylvia Krystel) will be his obsession.

LA MARGE has mobile and sensitive cameras, a good portrayal of the milieu (environment and characters) and a wonderful soundtrack (for example, the almost forgotten 10cc among others)

LA MARGE is a very personal film – if you like cinema as an audiovisual art, you should try this film, but those that want a film with a very straightforward story should look elsewhere.

Borowczyk remains one of the least appreciated filmmakers of his era, inarguably an auteur, but one so erratic and unusual that he remains cherished only by a handful of critics for his early surrealist work and by cult movie devotees for his later, sexually-explicit films. While from the mid-seventies onward his films would range from the good (Behind Convent Walls, The Story of Sin) to the not-so-good (The Art of Love, Immoral Tales, etc), his film-making legacy rests with the bizarre La Bete, which unfortunately belongs to the latter category. However it is his early films (both animated and live action) that are undoubtedly Borowczyk's key works – Blanche, for instance, is one of the finest films ever made, while Goto the Island of Love is almost as good – and in many ways these films set up the themes that would be prevalent throughout much of his subsequent work, most importantly that sex is constantly linked with guilt, persecution and death.

This is perhaps why La Marge is so unjustly obscure. The casting of Kristel (not to mention the film's alternate title Emmanuelle '77) suggests the film was tailored to appeal to the softcore market, yet the emphatically gloomy atmosphere and subject matter, which includes death, adultery and suicide, is significantly at odds with this. Compared to the other Borowczyk films of this period, with perhaps the exception of The Story of Sin, La Marge is surprisingly restrained. The film works because of its minimalism and ambiguity – the dialogue is sparse, presumably because of the actors' inability to speak French, and their character motivation is vague to say the least. It is never made clear why Sigimond is driven to cheat on his seemingly perfect wife, though it is perhaps no coincidence that Diana more than slightly resembles her. Borowczyk as usual fills the movie with visual motifs, using reflective surfaces to signify the duality of Sigimond's life, and lingering, unerotic shots of female genitalia to convey what is at the core of his actions and desires, and what is, in essence, being a Borowczyk film, Sigimond's prison.

The film is beautifully photographed, full of the director's obtuse trademark framing, and, something rather unusual for Borowczyk, features a remarkable period soundtrack, from the first Kristel/Dallesandro sex scene played out to 10CC's I'm Not in Love to the stunning blowjob sequence set to Pink Floyd, and an incredible climax that employs Elton John's Funeral For a Friend. While La Marge is distinctively a Borowczyk film in many respects, it also possesses a sombreness and maturity that was rare for the director, for despite the occasional surreal moment (a dwarf watching television, a hotel maid examining her breasts in the mirror, a deranged old woman watching sex through a keyhole), it is primarily a straightforward examination of two doomed characters unable to escape the prisons of their existence. Fans of the director's early work may find the film overly conventional, while devotees of his later period may be disappointed by how restrained it is, yet La Marge is an unfairly neglected film, one of the director's most enduring and haunting works.

A sex scene using Pink Floyd's "Shine on you crazy diamond" as soundtrack is one of the very few original things in this movie. But apart from that, little is to be remembered from this mediocre soft porn film.

Joe Dalessandro and Sylvia Krystel were top sex symbols at the time "La marge" was made; the former still had the infamous Warhol trilogy stamped all over him , while the latter had found stardom a couple of years earlier with the legendary "Emanuelle". I guess it was inevitable that the "talents" of these two were combined in one movie, possibly having their strip-in-every-other-scene fame in mind. And while Krystel seems to be laid back in a territory she is familiar with, Dalessandro is obviously nervous at times, the reason probably being that he CANNOT speak french! Almost each time he speaks, the camera avoids shooting his face, making us seriously think if it is his voice that is heard!

Too bad that such an interesting storyline is wasted on consequent, vaguely linked to each other, sex scenes.

3

La Marge, directed by Walerian Borowczyk, is an unusual film that blends art-house cinema with erotica, resulting in a thought-provoking yet sensual experience. It explores the subtle ways emotions are conveyed through body movement, particularly in the context of sexual encounters and the notion that the type of orgasm one experiences with a partner can indicate the depth of their love.

The film focuses on a sex worker, Diana, and the story is told through a unique soundscape that emphasizes ambient noises and music over dialogue. The wind, juke box tunes, and everyday sounds like eating and cleaning create an atmospheric backdrop to the visuals. The cinematography is mobile and sensitive, capturing the environment and characters effectively. The film has a personal and artistic feel, and its slow pace and subtle symbolism add to its enigmatic appeal.

However, the film's obscure nature might be off-putting to some. La Marge sits in an uncomfortable middle ground, perhaps too conventional for fans of the director's early work, yet too restrained for those accustomed to his later releases. The film's exploration of sex and its links to guilt, persecution, and death might be expected themes for those familiar with Borowczyk's work, but they are presented in a more subtle and restrained manner here.

La Marge is an intriguing, if somewhat perplexing, film. It is a unique and personal work of art, but its slow pace, ambiguous symbolism, and focus on subtle emotional cues may make it inaccessible to viewers who prefer more straightforward storytelling.

La Marge is an acquired taste, much like the director's other works, but it leaves a lingering impression, inviting reflection on the relationship between art, sexuality, and human emotion.

La Marge is the kind of film conventional film critics hate to review, because it does not quite fit into these little genre boxes they have in their heads.

In its cinematography and story-telling La Marge is very much like an Art House picture: we have emotions, tragedy, laughter, silence, pictures telling a story, plot twists, slow pace, all the ingredients you might expect in the most toffee-nosed productions only people with a university degree are supposed to enjoy. And yet, it is also a piece of erotica, shamelessly exploitative and very effective in its abundant use of (mostly) female nudity and its sex scenes.

Erotic cinema does not get any classier than this.