Available from
Cult
Epics | Review
by Crites
The
first I'd heard of THE BEAST was in Tohill
& Tombs' Immoral Tales. What
drew my attention were two photographs accompanying
the essay: one featured a Marie-Antoinette-looking
fox running through the forest in only a
corset and blonde wig. The other depicted
a naked woman straddling an ape-like animal,
milking its sizeable dong. How could one
help but be intrigued? The book doesn't
confirm this release's promotional claim
that THE BEAST was banned for 25 years,
but does provide information supporting
director Borowczyk's status as a cult/art/porn
director whose films are rather difficult
to find. So kudos to the true fetishists
at Cult Epics, who not only dragged this
rarity out of some forgotten vault but went
the extra mile and, instead of cheaply transferring
some shit pirate copy of a cut-up release
to DVD, properly mastered and released the
film as a limited edition 3-disc set.
Disc one contains the director's
cut of THE BEAST... (WARNING: contains spoilers)
The neighing of a horse accompanies
the opening credits, in subtle white type
against a black field that leads into a
quote from Voltaire, giving the picture
a misleadingly classy introduction; the
film opens at the stables, on a horse's
gigantic erection being guided into the
quivering genitalia of his equine partner.
Nostrils flaring, teeth buried in the mane
of his filly, the horse rams his way to
completion and pulls out with a gush of
semen, all caught in the same colorfully
close-up manner in which human hardcore
is filmed.
Overseeing the mating is scruffy
Mathurin (Pierre Benedetti), who is actually
the son of the Earl de l'Esperance. He's
soon called in for grooming by his father
Pierre (Guy Trejan), in preparation for
his upcoming marriage to American blueblood
Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel), who even
now is on her way to the chateau with her
Aunt Virginia (Elisabeth Kaza).
After a brief stop in the
forest that allows Lucy to run around in
her leopardskin coat taking Polaroids, the
Broadhursts arrive to find the mating session
still underway. Lucy gets a snapshot of
that as well. Lucy and Virginia have arrived
during Mathurin's baptism, which oddly enough
is taking place behind a closed bathroom
door as Father Pederast officiates from
outside. (Pederast is not the character's
actual name, but the pair of young boys
he drags around to paw and kiss makes this
moniker more than apt.)
In the meantime the ladies
are received by Pierre's uncle, the wheelchair-bound
Duke Rammondelo de Balo (Dalio). Charmed
by Countess Romilda de l'Esperance's writings
of two-hundred years ago regarding the ghosts
haunting the family chateau, Lucy asks Rammondelo
if these legends hold any truth. He has
never seen the ghosts himself, he says,
but he does produce the Countess' antique
scrapbook, which aside from containing pressed
leaves and maps of the grounds holds bizarre
drawings of a mythical animal. Rammondelo
next shows them the Countess' corset, handsomely
displayed after having been retrieved from
a forest pond ages ago. The ravaged item
still bears the claw marks with which it
was found.
Colorful behavior on the part
of the family is far from over however;
Pierre is in the process of blackmailing
Rammondelo into having his brother Cardinal
Joseph de Balo perform the marriage ceremony,
using the knowledge that the Duke murdered
his Duchess by poison years ago. The Broadhursts
insist upon the Cardinal conducting the
nuptial mass, and Pierre desperately needs
Lucy's dowry to help maintain the crumbling
l'Esperance estate. But for some reason
the Vatican is refusing to take Rammondelo's
calls...
Lucy meanwhile has been masturbating
to the photograph of horse coitus when she
is interrupted by a call down to dinner.
It's a meal that does not go at all well;
not only does the Earl learn that the will
of Lucy's father puts a timeline on the
marriage that ends in 48 hours, but Mathurin,
always shy around the ladies but now beginning
to get cold feet despite the impassioned
correspondence he's been conducting with
Lucy, gets drunk and has to be hauled away
from the table.
That night Lucy dreams, of
history and of Countess Romilda de l'Esperance
(Sirpa Lane). Playing her harpsichord as
she watches an ewe and lamb graze outside
her window, when the lamb wanders away from
its tether the Countess chases after the
tiny creature into the forest. But by the
time she finds it in the dark woods the
baby animal has already been torn apart
by the Beast.
That night the rest of the
chateau sleeps in their clothes, ready and
waiting for the arrival of the Cardinal
that Pierre keeps promising as imminent.
But as he goes to hound Rammondelo yet again
about summoning his brother, Pierre hears
the Duke on the phone actually warning the
Cardinal away from the estate. Pierre seizes
Rammondelo and physically drags him away
from the phone by his wheelchair, then in
a fit of frustration and anger pulls out
a straight razor and murders the Duke.
Lucy's dream continues, as
the Countess flees from the sight of the
great Beast devouring the lamb's organs.
To the strains of Baroque music the Beast,
who looks like a cross between a bear, an
ape, and a giant sloth, chases the woman
through the woods, her clothing being progressively
shorn away by rough branches and the grasping
claws of the monster. Soon the Countess
is down to only socks and corset, and watching
her desperate struggles causes the Beast's
muzzle-like member to swell. In the frenzy
of activity that follows the Countess tries
helplessly to climb a tree and ends up giving
the Beast a footjob, his massive prick discharging
its seed between her socks. The Countess
somehow manages to run away just as she's
about to be violated, leaving the Beast
to copulate her blonde wig.
Aroused by her dream Lucy
seeks out the sleeping Mathurin and begins
to undress him, but his fitful slumber disturbs
her and she returns to her room. Wetting
down her nightgown the sweet strawberry
blonde goes back to bed and masturbates
with the rose sent to her earlier by her
betrothed. As she does so her fantasy about
the Countess picks up again. This time the
Beast has caught her and violated her from
behind, much to the Countess' delight. This
scenario sends Lucy into a fit of ecstasy,
tearing her gauzy nightgown apart as she
writhes her way to a climax. Feverishly
she again visits Mathurin's bedroom, but
again is driven away by his violently troubled
night fits.
In the forest the Countess,
though bloodied by the Beast's sizeable
attentions, is ready for more; taking the
Beast's cock between her breasts she coaxes
yet another mighty load from it. The Countess
continues, with such intensity that the
hearty Beast is overcome, literally killed
by the kindness of her appetites.
This time when Lucy goes to
Mathurin she finds that he too has passed
away, coming to rest upon the floor atop
her leopardskin jacket. Her cries awaken
the entire household. Mathurin is laid out
in the drawing room and the priest summoned
to perform last rites, but before he can
do so Aunt Victoria seems to come under
some sort of spell and begins to attack
his dead body. Tearing open his clothing
she exposes an unusually hairy torso, and
when she pulls apart the cast he's had wrapped
over his hand the assembly sees a coarse
hairy talon. Rolling the corpse over Victoria
continues to rip Mathurin's clothing apart,
bringing to light a small penile tail protruding
from the bushy patch at the base of his
spine. "The Beast – the Beast!"
The household flies into a
panic, and Victoria flees the chateau with
Lucy just as the Cardinal at last arrives
from Rome. Greatly displeased with the sight
that awaits him, the Cardinal offers up
some choice words on bestiality.
In the woods the Countess
buries her Beast in leaves at the stump
of an unmarked pillar, as her corset curls
up like a dying flower within a forest pond.
Beautifully sharp, colorful,
and given a decidedly unrated widescreen
presentation, THE BEAST is viewable in both
English and French, with or without subtitles.
It is captured with all of the grandeur
befitting a fable of epic tragedy, albeit
one of the romantic, pornographic, bestiality-laden
type. As you might have guessed by now,
every aspect of the film is steeped in eroticism
- from the latent nature of the fairy tale
itself to small touches such as the Hans
Bellmer-style bestiality sketch found hidden
on the back of a framed sample of calligraphy
(and the copy of Voltaire's The Maid of
Orleans that Lucy finds, complete with pornographic
etchings). Snails crawling throughout the
picture add an appreciably surreal lost-world
touch.
Something not explicitly referenced
before is how stunningly beautiful the women
are in the film, and how often they are
seen naked. Particularly striking is the
Earl's daughter Clarisse, a pale sinewy
girl in Bo Derek braids who spends all of
her time banging the black butler Ifany.
(He 'tupping the Earl's white ewe,' so to
speak.) Disc one comes with the special
feature of a theatrical trailer (the Beast
chasing after the countess, genitals carefully
blocked out) and an erotic photo gallery.
Disc two, Beast Bis, contains
more stills, along with a biography and
interview with director Borowczyk. Also
included is the 'making of' feature Beast
Bis, all timing out to nearly two hours.
The biography is a brief one,
touching upon the Polish filmmaker's studies
of the arts before taking up his profession
in France, accompanied by old photographs,
report cards, sketches, sculpture, paintings
and the like. The interview, or "meeting,"
with Borowczyk is chiefly an opportunity
for the elderly director to spout poetry
and expound upon the symbolism and psychology
of his picture. All of which is conducted
with the tone and pace of a lecture, making
it rather dry to all but students of foreign
films. It does provide a bit of background
to the documentary however, namely that
it was all captured on 'hidden camera' (this
taking place back in '75, mind you) and
then tucked away and forgotten for 25 years.
"The Making of La Bete"
is the result. Borowczyk establishing shots
and taking distance and light readings;
the cast and crew lounging between takes;
still photography; set preparation; measurements;
discussion; cat wrangling; lots of toast-eating;
hair and wardrobe; still photography; more
cat wrangling; waiting, waiting, and more
waiting. And, oh yes, the director walking
around with his fly undone. Pretty much
all of the normal activity you'd expect
to see on a film set, all shown in silent
faded color. While perhaps impressive insofar
as it's something of an historical artistic
document, this will probably only be considered
essential for true fans of Borowczyk's work.
Disc three contains the "rare
rediscovered" widescreen version of
the complete film, containing four additional
minutes of footage removed from the director's
cut. It also contains shots of the film's
lobby cards.
And then there's the 52-page
booklet Beast Bis. Full of color photos
suitable for framing this handsomely-printed
work contains quotes from myth and legend,
a rather fancy essay on Borowczyk's cinema
of bestiality by Bernard Privat, and several
other fancified critical essays on the aspects
of the film's primitive but romantic drama.
Ernest Martin's piece from History of Freaks
from Antiquity to the Present Day is a nice
one, as is Remy de Gourmont's excerpt on
snail intercourse from The Physics of Love,
and Jean-Paul Sarre contributes some grim
sexual psychology as well ("Female
desire find(s) its ultimate expression in
the orgasm that is produced by the death
of a rutting animal.") Also included
is another interview with Borowczyk, a rather
high-minded treatment of the bestiality
fable ("I know everything") conducted
by Sarre and Anatole Dauman, a critical
synopsis by Chris Marker, and some commentary
by the actors. Again, nice photographs.
All in all this is quite
the package: a fine and unusual film well
presented and accompanied by a wide range
of documentation. Very well put together,
and very much worth your money.
