Can't you leave me alone? Questions, questions, all the time. I can't meet anybody, go anywhere, do anything, without you wanting to know everything! I'm old enough to do what I want to when I please!
I have previously watched and enjoyed the atmospherics of Vampiros Lesbos and I have to say that Jesus “Jess” Franco is very good at building a mood especially in the warmth of a Mediterranean summer. In VL this is the perfect supernatural complement to the brooding sexuality of the main characters but here, there is something missing and that something is sexual sympathy.
You know what you’re going to get with a Jess Franco film and Eugenie is indeed full of many of his winning ingredients: beautiful female leads in the form of the incredibly pretty Marie Liljedahl and the striking Maria Rohm, creepy men with dubious mores, tick Jack Taylor and a surprising classy cameo, here from Christopher Lee. Lee plays the master of a group of sexual adventurers and moral iconoclasts who, frankly, just want to have fun if, that is, you accept murder and torture as “fun”.
This was the director’s second adaptation of the works of the Marquis de Sade after 1969’s Justine (not the Koo Stark version!) which featured Hollywood legend Mercedes McCambridge as Madame Dubois as well as Maria Rohm and Klaus Kinski as the Marquis. This follow up relies heavily on Lee to add gravitas but he only spent a day or two recording his part and seems to be in a different film from the scattergun debauchery all around him inserted much to his surprise during post production editing.
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| Christopher Lee |
This film was adapted from de Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), and it's uneven but not a stinker – I am only flesh and blood after all. That atmosphere and excellent cinematography from Manuel Merino together with the undeniable beauty of the aforementioned Marie do maintain the interest – but the pure cruelty of the story is neither startling nor erotic. Rohm plays Madame Saint Ange who, with her brother Mirvel (Jack Taylor) run extraordinary parties on their lonesome island in the Med.
Madame has been nurturing the friendship of a beautiful young woman Eugenie (Liljedahl) who she has been leading on a Sapphic path – I know right, saucy! - and makes sure she persuades her father to let his daughter spend time with her in isolation off the coast and far away from his gaze in Barcelona. Interesting that this international co-production was based in Catalonia, a more liberal haven away from Franco’s censors in Madrid. But unlike say Vicente Aranda of the Barcelona School who used arthouse and genre films to make subtle political points, Franco is only really aiming to amuse and titillate.
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| Maria Rohm |
So it is that we see Madame gradually seducing Eugenie with the aim of enabling her brother to also engage with the young women whilst she is under the influence of certain intoxicants. She convinces Eugenie that she has dreamt everything which to modern eyes is more date rape than erotic play. The “dreams” get wilder though as Dolmance (Christopher Lee) arrives with his gang of deviants to complete the games in as perverted a way as possible.
Dusty Verdict: Now, I’ve not read de Sade and I’m not so convinced of the appeal of his theories of sexual freedom but what we see here are long sequences of slow-paced sexual encounters that rely a lot on suggestion and are accompanied by exotic vocalise composed by Bruno Nicolai. The driving cruelty behind Madame’s plan is not erotic but uncomfortable – maybe I’m just squeamish!
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| Jack Taylor, Marie Liljedahl and Maria Rohm |
Maria Rohm is superb though and thoroughly believable as
the perverse countess whilst Jack Taylor is so effective he’s more horror than
anything else and it’s this mix of the unpleasant with the beautiful that
undermines enjoyment of a film with so much visual appeal. Marie Liljedahl is
very beautiful but also not in the same class as these two as an actor making
her abuse the most gratuitous thing in the whole film – not her nudity.
The sadistic sect is also a bit hammy despite Lee’s best
efforts and it contributes to an uneven film that may well have been far sexier
if Franco had simplified the plot and laid off the actual deathly violence:
S&M does not stand for Sadistic Murder after all. It’s a game not a crime
scene. Franco also adds an element of implausability when after a climactic development he flashes back to an earlier scene... has it all been a dream (oh no!) and is it all still to come or not as the case may be.
Anyway, Eugenie… has merits and maybe I should have put on a
smoking jacket, drunk some port and smoked a few Cuban cigars before watching. Jess, don't be cruel to a heart that's true, uh-huh-huh?
*Sorry to anyone under 50… that’s a reference to Careful with that Axe, Eugene one of Pink Floyd’s greatest tracks from the post-Barrett period and fabulous live in Ummagumma. A template for post-rock and the likes of Mogwai and Mono!
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