L'Amour Braque (Andrzej Żuławski, 1985)

There's a scene that occurs midway through Andrzej Żuławski's L'Amour Braque that is the key to judging whether or not this film is a success. Personally, I thought the scene where Sophie Marceau rips the crotch of her tan pantyhose to help the trajectory of Tchéky Karyo's erect, vagina-bound penis was all I needed to deem this film a success. However, in order for this come off a real movie review, I need to allude something that is not perversion-based. And since it's tradition for me to type words that pertain to the insanity of the characters whenever I write about the films of Andrzej Żuławski (this is my fourth), I think opening with a bit about madness is only fitting. Anyway, as I was saying, when Francis Huster falls to the ground shouting incoherent nonsense at the top of his lungs at around the midway point, I... Wait, I think every scene in this movie either begins or ends with Francis Huster falling to the ground shouting incoherent nonsense at the top of his lungs. Be that as it may, the fact that none of the people who were walking by as Francis Huster engaged in a full-body conniption fit took notice of him put my mind at ease. The reason it did so is quite simple, everyone who appears in an Andrzej Żuławski film must be on the same wavelength as the director. The second someone comes off as shocked or appalled by what is transpiring in front of them, is the moment I get taken out of the movie.

Thankfully, everyone is completely on board. Meaning, good luck finding a voice of reason in this two-toed clusterfuck of a romantic comedy. Yep, you heard me, romantic comedy.

I know this goes against everything I just said, but I would have loved to have seen a character ask a simple question. You know, something like: Do you know what time it is? Imagine how Tchéky Karyo or Francis Huster would have reacted to a question like that? I can just picture Tchéky holding this person down (while screaming incoherent nonsense at the top of his lungs) as Francis proceeded to eat escargot from their quivering butt-hole.

(It can't be that absurd, can it?) Oh, trust me, it can. No one acts like a normal human being in this movie. Of course, I don't mean to imply that using the outer layer of someone's anus as an escargot bowl is abnormal. But you got to admit, it's highly irregular, especially when you factor in the sheer amount of non-rectal tableware that was available in France during the 1980s (they don't call it the dish and plate decade for nothing).

If I was at screening of this film and Andrzej Żuławski was on hand to do a Q and A afterward, I wouldn't ask a goddamn thing. Actually, that's not entirely true. If I was able to communicate via telepathy (using your mouth to express ideas is for saps), I think I would ask him if Brian de Palma's Scarface was an inspiration. I know, it clearly states that Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot was the inspiration for this film. It's just that some of the action scenes had a Scarface feel to them.

Yeah, that's right, I said, action scenes. So, let's recap: It would seem that Andrzej Żuławski has directed an absurdist romantic comedy/action movie that was inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.

At any rate, like I was saying, there's plenty of action in this film. We're talking car chases, we're talking shoot outs, we're talking bank robberies.

Opening with a bank robbery involving four jumpsuit-wearing thieves in Disney masks, L'Amour Braque establishes right away that this is going to be a film that plays by its own rules. Oh, sure, it looks like a bank is being robbed (a common occurrence in action/crime cinema), but the way it's executed is unlike any bank robbery I've ever seen.

Hopping aboard a train, the gang, lead by Micky (Tchéky Karyo), seem to be making a clean getaway, when all of a sudden, the police arrive. Luckily, Tchéky and the gang are able to thwart the authorities with the help of Léon (Francis Huster), a dim Hungarian émigré.

Seeing him as a sort of good luck charm, Micky takes Léon under his wing and proceeds to show him how Parisian criminals unwind. Part of the unwinding process involves introducing him to Mary (Sophie Marceau), his gorgeous Parisian girlfriend. I don't think I have to tell you what happens next.

Actually, even if I did have to tell to you, I don't think I would want to. First of all, while the story is pretty straight-forward gangster stuff, as with the bank heist scene, the way it plays out is nothing but... straight-forward. Careening from one scene to another in a nonsensical fashion, the film will severely test the patience of those who are accustomed to hearing dialogue that makes a modicum of sense.

Now, unlike the characters in Andrzej Żuławski's Possession and Szamanka, these people are not mentally-ill. They simply express themselves in a manner that is somewhat unorthodox. (Somewhat?) Okay, they do so in a manner that is extremely unorthodox. So much so, I don't think I understood a single thing any of the characters said in this movie. Granted, I was familiar with the words they were saying. It's just that the manner they were arranged was so baffling.

Let's just say, people who pretend to be smart for a living will eat this shit up. As for the rest of us–you know, those who are painfully aware of their own brain deficiencies–we will have to find alternative ways to navigate this film's pompous ass-enabling mind-field. And the best way I discovered to do so is to relish in the film's visual bouquet.

My favourite example of this "visual bouquet" occurs when we see a group of Dick Tracy-esque hoods strutting down the middle of a neon lit street near the famous Folies Bergère. Looking like a scene lifted straight from the pages of a sleazy comic book, the cartoonish energy of this scene flies in the face of the film's art-house temperament. Hold up, forget about flying in the face of, the two styles actually complement one another.

If cartoon violence and neon lighting isn't your thing, you could simply sit back and bask in the beauty that is Sophie Marceau. If you're not into brunettes, you could always bask in Christiane Jean, who plays... to be honest, I have no idea who she plays. Either way, Jess Franco fans will recognize her from Faceless. In conclusion, out of the handful of Andrzej Żuławski film I've seen so far, I would have to say L'Amour Braque is the most challenging.

Faceless (Jess Franco, 1987)

The extreme lengths one will go through in order to attain the perfect complexion is examined in the ghastly Faceless (a.k.a. Les prédateurs de la nuit), a plastic surgery gone awry chiller from trash peddler extraordinaire Jess Franco (Bloody Moon, Eugénie de Sade, and hundreds of other works of sleazy goodness). Well, actually, I wouldn't go as so far to say that there is any sort of "examining" going on this film–after all, it's a Franco flick (tawdry thrills and lingering leg moments are the main order of business). But as far as watching backroom chainsaw dismemberment, unwanted face peeling, gigolos getting scissored in the neck, drill heads being changed prior to a head being drilled, and, my personal favourite, syringes wielded by sophisticated women of European extraction go, I'd say the film is resounding success. Oh, sure, Telly Savalas (NFL Players Association Awards Dinner) literally phones in his performance and the amount of flame coming off the guy playing the Dorothy-friendly fashion photographer will cause your inexpensive gaydar to explode into a million fabulous pieces. But what exactly is wrong with using a telephone and being aggressively flamboyant? I can't think of anything.

After a night of high end shopping, Dr. Flamand (Helmet Berger), his wife Ingrid (Christiane Jean) and his sister Nathalie (Brigitte Lahaie) are confronted in a Paris parking garage by a dissatisfied patient. Unhappy with the results of her plastic surgery, the scarred woman throws a glass of acid in Ingrid's face. Mildly disfigured ("mildly" because I thought she still looked hot), Ingrid retreats from the world. Determined to bring his wife back to a state of acceptable attractiveness, Dr. Flamand and Nathalie begin to work on finding her a new face.

This search sees them abducting a fashion model named Barbara (Caroline Munro), a prostitute (Amélie Chevalier), and an actress (Florence Guérin). The model's disappearance (she was lured with sweet cocaine) causes her New York-based father (Telly Savalas) to hire a private detective (Christopher Mitchum) to do what the French police can't seem to do, and that is, find out what happened to Barbara.

Luckily for her, Dr. Flamand and Nathalie's deranged man-servant (Gérard Zalcberg) causes Barbara some facial distress during an off-the-cuff sexual assault.

As punishment for this act, the man-servant is forced to rub his face over the fishnet stocking-covered legs of Ingrid. Um, I don't really see how this is a punishment exactly. I mean, I must have missed something, because this looked like, from my cockeyed point-of-view, to be the best punishment ever.

Anyway, unsure of his face transplanting skills, Dr. Flamand employs the services of a former SS doctor (Anton Diffring) who did experiments at Dachau. The nonchalant manner in which Dr. Flamand and Nathalie go about finding the Nazi physician was kind of jarring. Killing women for their faces is one thing, but hiring a Nazi?

A nosy, wheelchair-bound patient (Stéphane Audran), who is recovering in the non-antiseptic dungeon wing of Dr. Flamand's clinic, starts to get suspicious of all the sinister activity going on downstairs, but she is quickly taken care of.

A virtual lingerie bonanza–in that it worships everything below the neck–the human face is effectively rendered redundant in this film. Whether it was Jess Franco's intention or not, but what I took away from the film is that the face, while important in some social situations, isn't necessary. The body, particularly when draped in pleasing fabrics, supplants the face when it comes to winning over the fickle crotches of others.

Every scene that features a woman enticing her intended victim seems to centre around the act of lifting up a piece of fabric to reveal the fleshy, unadorned area that separates the structural inner workings of their intricate lingerie. This combination of nylon and skin is so harmonious, that the person generating the images of this frothy display with his or her cerebral cortex will discover that their genitals have since become inflamed with a feverish form of desire.

However, it should be said, that in the case of Caroline Munro, she doesn't even seem to need lingerie.* Merely utilizing the tantalizing shape of her full-flavoured thighs, Caroline manages to manipulate a degenerate without the aid of flouncy undergarments.

Alluring, chic, and moderately evil all at once, Brigitte Lahaie is elegance personified as Nathalie, Dr. Flamand's unscrupulous assistant/kleptomaniac sister. Whether plunging syringes into the eyes of paranoid patients or driving scissors into the throats of untactful male prostitutes, Brigitte oozes sophistication and a steely brand of grace. I liked how she called the tactless boy-toy an "asshole" right before ventilating his neck area; the way it clashed with her overall European elan made my ovaries sing.

With her dark, piercing eyes–which looked extra nefarious when paired with red leather–Miss Lahaie cast an eerie spell over the proceedings. No fooling, nary a scene goes by without a shot of Brigitte staring intently at something.

When I first saw Florence Guérin dominating the dancefloor at the local discotheque, my eyes couldn't help but notice that her white fingerless gloves had less finger material than your average pair of fingerless gloves. After I grew bored with admiring her swanky handwear, it was Florence's black high-waisted leather mini-skirt's turn to dazzle my senses.

In terms of leather skirts seen throughout the history of pop culture, I'd definitely put Florence's up there with the one Papillon Soo Soo wears as a Da Nang prostitute in Full Metal Jacket and the many that Italian singer Sabrina Salerno struggled to keep on during the late 1980s. What I liked about it was that it gave her vagina and the wind swept confines of her delicious anus the coverage they so desperately need to go about their daily business, or in this case, nightly business, with a modicum of confidence. At the same time, the skirt managed to accentuate the length of her spectacular gams.

While Papillon's leather skirt seemed like it was glued on, and Sabrina's appeared to have a mind of its own, Florence's was lifted up on purpose. You see, Florence Guérin (who plays herself in this film) wants to impress Dr. Flamand and Nathalie (especially the latter, who clearly has dibs on her labia), and she does so by lounging seductively on their sofa. Pulling up her black high-waisted leather mini-skirt with a determined hiking motion, she lays out the exquisite fullness of her Gallic frame for all to see. Exposing the softness of her womanly body like it were a freshly cooked meal, Florence awaits the return of her horny hosts with a breathy mix of trepidation and insincere coquettishness.

A kinda remake of the classic Eyes Without a Face, this knock off/undertaking is similar in that it takes place in France and is about a doctor who desperately wants to procure a new face for a female loved one. Yet, being a Jess Franco film, the deep and thoughtful aspects of the Georges Franju version have been jettisoned and have found themselves replaced with discotheques, fur coats, garter belts, make out sessions with severed heads, cocaine, pimps named Rashid, and, of course, black high-waisted leather mini-skirts. Not a bad trade, if you ask me.

* Do leg restraints count as lingerie? The UCLA, the undergarment council for lingerie affairs, stated in its 1894 charter that: "Any fabric that is used to emphasize the natural beauty of the human body, whether intentional or not, shall fall comfortably under the lingerie umbrella." And, hey, I'm not one to argue with the UCLA, so I guess the answer to my question is a resounding yes. They do count. Yay!

Special thanks to the swanky empresses over at the Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire for causing my frazzled mind to become acutely aware of this botched face lift, high-waisted leather skirt-laden piece of trashy cinema.

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