Mascara

I was given some old videos and this Mascara was with them, i just put It on and really enjoyed the whole Drag and Transvestite theme, with The Lovely Eva Robin's as Peppa.... watch and enjoy something a little Different from the normal every day films.

I didn't expect to see such good actors as Michael Sarrazin and Charlotte Rampling in a movie of this theme but they play the parts very well and convincingly.

For me Eva Robin's portrayal of Peppa was touching and I felt great sorrow for the character and found her strangely intriguing.

Murder mystery and a Love story with a different theme what more could you ask for?

I would say give it a chance and you will enjoy, but if you don't like the drag and transvestite theme then steer well away.

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.

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.

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?

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.