Malpertuis

Having seen this film some years ago on television in a dark, dubbed and cut print, I had all but forgotten it. Yesterday I saw Kumel's restored cut in his own Flemish language, running 124 minutes, and my reaction was "brilliant". The picture was actually originally made in English, French, German and Dutch versions and then hacked to bits in the various markets. This film is a "must-see" for any serious film fan with its fabulous photography, stylish composition and surreal overtones - Magritte too was Belgian. It's more than a horror film as it has often been tagged, but a series of dreams or perhaps nightmares with all the illogic of dreams. I am fairly certain that Welles did his own Flemish dialog and that too makes it a must for the connoisseur.

I have just seem the 99 minute version in French on YouTube and have only just realised that the 119 version of this film in Flemish is the complete one to see; a directors cut. I am not sure I want to see this as I found ' Malpertuis ' to be a nauseating experience coming out of a disturbed place that I wish I had not entered. The story itself is based around an enforced entrapment in a house called ' Malpertuis ' and after the highlight of the film, Orson Welles at his best, disappears there is a slow descent into very graphic horror typical of a lot of 1970's films. Is the house real or is it an entrapment in a disturbed young man's mind ? I will give no spoilers but it is pretty clear at the end what the house actually is. I would advise anyone who has had a psychiatric illness not to go near this ( for me ) repulsive film. The music by Georges Delerue is excellent but other than Welles I found the acting to be mediocre. I know it has affected my own mind badly, and some of the images are beautiful and it is finely shot, but it is cruelly sensationalist and that is why I depart from those who consider it a masterpiece. I dislike films and there were many of them in the 1970's that had to go, or wanted to go to extremes so as to get audiences in. I feel as mentally confused as the various versions that have and perhaps still are circulating.

Based on the novel by Jean Ray (the so-called "Belgian Poe"), "Malpertuis" begins with Jan, a young sailor, being summoned with a motley company of acquaintances and family to the death bed of his mysterious Uncle Cassave. Cassave soon dies, leaving his considerable fortune to the dozen or so people he has summoned. However, there are stiff terms attached to his gift: The inheritors must all live for the rest of their lives at Malpertuis, Cassave's mansion. Jan soon realizes there is something amiss at Malpertuis (a name meaning either "house of evil" or "house of cunning"). There is something odd in the attic, in the labyrinthine hallways, and in the surrounding wood. There is something even stranger about Malpertuis' other inhabitants: the mad hermit Lampernisse who haunts the mansion's dark corridors, the coy and beautiful Euryale who will not look anyone in the face, and the diabolic taxidermist Philarete, to name only a few. When the secret of Malpertuis is finally brought to light among this bizarre cast of characters, the mansion erupts into a seething cauldron of terror, and both heaven and earth seem to collapse around Jan.

While fans of Jean Ray's novel will find the story much changed, the film is visually engaging at the very least, and the casting is excellent, for the most part. Orson Welles plays the dying Uncle Cassave, delivering the second performance of his career as a large man stuck in a very large bed (the other performance being, of course, in his adaptation of Kafka's "The Trial"). Susan Hampshire gives an admirable performance in four different roles--excellently well disguised and made-over in each--as Euryale, Nancy, Alice, and a nurse. The sets are extraordinary, filling the screen with an unending stream of vivid detail. Also, the film's cinematography is often both aggressive and intelligently creative, employing just the sort of unpredictable perspective necessary to portray the mansion's mystifying interior.

Disappointments with the film begin small. Jean-Pierre Cassel as Lampernisse does not look the part. Instead of a tall, shadowy, aged-but-ageless, and profoundly mad hermit, he looks like a leper who has wandered off the set of "Ben-Hur." Accompanying Lampernisse is the laughable, high-pitched babble of the "creatures in the attic." In these rare instances, the filmmakers miss by a wide margin the texture of Ray's novel. At other times the film slightly underplays or rushes some of the book's strongest scenes. The one serious offense, though, is the film's ending; the muddled chaos here is a poor substitute for Ray's synchronized anarchy.

This is not to say that the film loses itself completely. The strength of the first hour and more cannot be entirely undermined by the ending. The inspired cinematography and many of the sets, performances, and special effects are truly exceptional. The scenes with little, crazed, mousy Philarete and his morbid workroom are reason enough for the film to exist. Subtlety and humor are here as well, perhaps best represented in the recurring static shot of the inheritors occupying themselves in Malpertuis' small drawing room.

My hopes were high for this film. I'd seen Kumel's Le Rouge aux levres/Daughters of Darkness, the most stylish vampire/kinky sex movie ever made, and I love its sly wit and arresting visuals. Malpertuis is not as effective, alas, and I put that down to an overly-complicated story weighed down by too many classical references taken from the novel. Lampernisse, standing in for Prometheus, just doesn't work as a character. Why introduce the Erinyes, the three women who punished offenders against blood kin, when they don't advance the story? It's not an easy thing to watch a movie with a handbook of classical mythology by your side.

Having said this, I will add that it is wonderful to watch film that shows a great visual sophistication (crowd shots that evoke an Ensor painting, or that wonderful twisting staircase in the house) and never needs F/X. We have lost a great deal by the subservience to CGI today.

That's what the title means;or at least,that's what the priest explains to Matthieu Carrière.The subtitle is overkill and was added for commercial reasons,probably unbeknownst to the director."Doomed house" is a stupid title:are we so sure it's the story of a house? Isn't it rather the story of a mind? of a fantasy? of a folly?

This poesque subtitle is not suitable for Jean Ray's world,who keeps a certain logic inside a nightmarish swarming of monsters,werewolves,Gorgons and mad scientists.Some of his obsessions surface here:the Gorgon,turning mortals into stone,the taxidermist working on alive bodies,are topics we find not only in "Malpertuis" but also in "the adventures of Harry Dickson" ,his favorite hero (he wrote dozens of stories of this detective and his pupil Tom wills)Prometheus recalls here how suffering and sadism were haunting the Belgian writer.Because Belgian,this definitely is.Kummel's closest relative is none other than his compatriot André Delvaux who quoted Jean Ray in his masterwork "un soir,un train".I urge the users who have liked "Malpertuis" to try "Un soir ,un train".It's the same kind of atmosphere,simply it's more mastered,the emotional power -cruelly lacking in Kummel's work- is increased tenfold .

"Malpertuis" has a dream of a cast:Orson Welles-in a short part,but he makes every of his word count-,Matthieu Carrière ,"Der Junge Törless" wunderkind,Susan Hampshire,Two Chabrol favorites (Michel Bouquet and Jean-Pierre Cassel,both in "la rupture" some months before),and,most amazing thing,French singer Sylvie Vartan and in a cameo(uncredited) her then-husband ,Johnny Hallyday.

The plot may be hard to swallow for horror buffs.It's a film "à tiroirs",and the ending has in store at least three unexpected twists.The last picture leaves the spectator bewildered.Hampshire and Carrière seem unreal,and the world that surrounds them is no longer a world in ruins,but a world that forgot he's in ruins.And what kind of world is it?