Mascara

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.

This oddity from Belgium has the makings of a camp classic of sorts. It certainly has a few ingredients that put it into that particular ball park. It's about a police superintendent who is a serial murderer. He has a possibly-maybe incestuous relationship with his sister and he frequently visits an underground club populated by transvestites and transsexuals who like to lip-synch to opera. He becomes obsessed with an opera gown with glowing red heart and subsequently embroils its designer into his sordid world.

You'd have to describe this as a slice of 80's Eurotrash. It sets out to shock, and at times it sure does. In the single best moment in the movie we discover that one of the superintendent's female companion called Pepper is not all woman. It's a real shocker of a scene that will take almost everybody completely off-guard. Pepper is played by Eva Robin's who also had a striking role in Dario Argento's 80's giallo Tenebrae, where he/she appeared as the mysterious red-shoe woman in the recurring dream sequence.

It would be wrong to say that this is a great film. It certainly isn't but it does have enough delirious scenes and ideas to mean that it remains in the memory. The scenes in the club are a good example of over-the-top camp excess. And it is unusual how many 80's Euro films decided to merge high-brow opera with low-brow thrillers. Don't think, just look.

An incestuous brother-sister duo! A psychotic killer who stalks transsexuals! An underground S&M club called Mister Butterfly! An opera gown with a fluorescent red heart! In its irresistible mix of outre artiness and commercial sleaze, Mascara plays as if Werner Schroeter had set out to direct an erotic thriller in the style of Joe Eszterhas.

Unthinkable in any normal universe, but Mascara is most defiantly NOT a normal film. A box-office catastrophe on its release, and still barely known outside a small clique of twisted souls, this is a cult movie waiting to happen. As deliciously warped as anything by Almodovar or John Waters, it's all the more campily compelling for being played with a straight face.

In a queer inversion of the Orpheus myth, it is Woman (a smoulderingly beautiful Charlotte Rampling) who inhabits a sunlit above-ground world of music, art and 'healthy' sexuality. (All three summed up by her affair with a hunky opera designer, Derek de Lint.) It is Man (Michael Sarrazin as her deranged sibling) who wallows in a subterranean sexual Hell of his own making.

Brief but surprisingly graphic shots treat us to leather bondage gear, chain-mail masks and the scariest Tina Turner drag act you are ever likely to see. The subtle androgyny of Rampling's persona becomes an eerie reflection of the real-life transsexuals (Berlin cabaret legend Romy Haag and Italian beauty Ewa Robins) who round out the film's cast.

And to make it that wee bit more perverse, the lurid goings-on are set to some serenely lyrical opera excerpts by Gluck, Bellini and Strauss. You'll either adore or loathe Mascara - there's no middle ground - but guaranteed you've never seen anything quite like it.

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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Over the top, but fascinating thriller. Charlotte Rampling adds a bit of class to the proceedings (doesn't she always?) but also gets less screen time than our other two protagonists, Sarrazin and de Lint. Sarrazin fares better, only because he's chewing the scenery, and looking fabulous while doing it. de Lint is a combination of phoning it in and treating the material straight; this film is FAR from straight.

The film does revel in the perversity shown on screen-- we can be optimistic and say it's a celebration, but alas, it isn't. To be fair, everyone is perverse in this film, so it's not really just exploiting homosexuality, transgender, prostitution etc. Not exactly a condemnation, more of a LOOK AT THIS! And look we do, and we will be amused if one is used to this sort of thing.

Direction picks up flair in both the high class opera house, and the underground high class fetish club. The dresses are fantastic. There's a hysterical ending. There's Rampling's eyes; oh those eyes! Give it a watch if you want high budget camp.