Traitement de choc

When the executive of the fashion industry Hélène Masson (Annie Girardot) is dumped by her lover, she has a midlife crisis and her friend Gérôme Savignat (Robert Hirsch) advises her to spend vacation in the isolated rejuvenation clinic owned by Dr. Devilers (Alain Delon) and his partner Dr. Berbard (Michel Duchaussoy). Hélène is welcomed by the happy clients and befriends the Portuguese employee João, who is an illegal immigrant, practicing her knowledge in Portuguese language with him.

After the first injection of a formula based on animal blood, Hélène feels very well. But soon Gérôme can not afford to pay the treatment and commits suicide. Then João disappears and Dr. Devilers does not allow her to check-out the clinic. Hélène is suspicious that something is wrong and she goes further in her investigation of the clinic and finds the secret of the rejuvenation formula of Dr. Devilers.

"Traitement de Choc" is an unbelievable story of a doctor that uses illegal immigrants as an important component of his formula of rejuvenation. The story is of the same year of "Soylent Green" and both uses human blood and flesh with different purposes. The director Alain Jessua uses a bold but also silly scene of frontal nudity of the actors and actresses that does not add any value to the movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Tratamento Diabólico" ("Devilish Treatment")

'Shock Treatment' is the quoted translation at the start of this Alain Delon flick, part of the Alain Delon 'Screen Icons' box-set. The title used by IMDb stinks of Carry On innuendo as it belittles a popular sort of subject when it was made in 1973.

Rejuvenation and cosmetic beautification and its perceived ramifications were subjects handled quite a bit by the likes of Michael Crichton and this rather strange brew of beauty and savagery quite neatly stitches these two aspects together.

Annie Girardot plays the retail executive out to get some posh spa treatment at the exclusive resort run by the sinister Dr Devilers (Delon). Amongst the carrot juice cocktails and seaweed scrubs are life- affirming injections, whilst the ever rotating staff of illegally working Portuguese young male staff are despondent for some reason. A fellow patient mysteriously commits suicide and so Girardot goes on the prowl and does some investigating.

The explicit nudity was indeed an eye opener as I was only aware beforehand that it was cert 15 but of course all that frivolity, naturalness and freedom comes at a price. It all becomes nicely sickening the more we know as to how the clinic works and how it gets its medical "powers".

All in all, it's quite fun, suspenseful and macabre but please don't think that it's a cheesy comedy that's only out for cheap laughs that its popular title conveys.

38-year-old businesswoman (Annie Girardot), healthy but exhausted from work, takes the advice of her gay friend and checks into a rehabilitation spa overlooking the ocean. The institute specializes in living cell therapy, the menu consists of seaweed dishes, and a notice on the wall claims "your physical posture reflects the state of your psyche". It all looks good from the outset, but the new arrival's first hint of trouble comes while observing the frightened staff, the other clients, and even some of the locals, all of whom behave strangely...and then her gay friend maybe/maybe not commits suicide after warning her about the clinic's "monstrous horrors". French-Italian co-production, an early precursor to the For God's Sake, Get Out! Thriller genre, has been expertly-crafted for the most part by director and co-writer Alain Jessua, though one does wish the heroine made more sense as a character (she's sleeping with power-mad head honcho Alain Delon one minute and spying on him the next). Still intriguing, with rueful finish. *** from ****

Very good horror thriller, very atmospheric since the beginning, with a good social political background. Weird situations and bizarre blasé rich people make spectator feel uncomfortable. Nice action and story, disturbing. Appropriate end.

Alain Jessua has made some of the most disturbing movies of a generally tame French cinema (mainly in the seventies and early eighties unless some "avant-garde" drivel like "themroc" counts). Barely ten movies in almost forty years.His best works are to be found between 1972 and 1982,his most fruitful decade which begins with "traitement de choc" and encompasses forgotten works such as "les chiens " "Armaguedon" and "paradis pour tous" . "Traitement de choc" is his towering achievement though:and not only because Delon and Girardot are completely naked for one sequence by the sea .There's much more substance to find here.The core of movie is the fear of dying ,and when you see so many people worship their body today,you cannot deny this flick was ahead of its time.

In a strange clinic , doctors Delon and Duchaussoy make people look younger ,thanks to animal cells.That's what they say.Their patients set up a small community of happy few .Girardot who has been ditched by her partner and who comes to think she begins to get old enters the place.Little by little,strange things happen:a lot of the staff (migrant workers) are sent back home because they've got the homesick blues.That's what they say.One of her friend commits suicide because he was broke and could not afford this luxury anymore.That's what they say.The tension increases and in the last fifteen minutes ,"traitement de choc" becomes a true horror film.(One should note it was made the same year as "Solyent Green").

"Traitement de choc" is the selfishness of the bourgeoisie ,the power of money,the eternal dream of perpetual youth which haunts all of us ,man's exploitation of his fellow man (in every sense of the term)."Shock therapy" indeed.