La Prisonnière

A psychological pastiche on the theme of the split of an individual between his repressed desires and the external mask itself suffers from a split between pseudo-Giallo clichés and artistic seizures. The strong moments of formalistic sequences, during which strangely in the final "dream" passage the breakdown of the false human ego shines through a frantic film cut and op-art attack on the human face, also show the limit of this film - in the tradition of conventional cinema, this 3.5-minute magnificent sequence is framed as a mere distinct diegetic insert: delirium of a fictional character... And not - as demonstrated for example by one of the most famous confessed sadistic fetishists of the French artistic scene of the 2nd half of the 20th century, Alain Robbe-Grillet - to transfer sadomasochistic impulses from the bodies of characters directly into the body of the film itself - generalized depersonalizing cut and transformation of characters into mere puppets in the sadistic hands of the artist are in strong contrast to Clouzot's retreat back to mere depiction of traditional psychologizing dilemmas of characters, to whom we are supposed to believe in their credibility with the "effect of reality" of conventional artistic codes. The partially original arthouse in the best sense of the word thus suffers from occasional gusts of stereotypes from better European sexploitation, and in the end, the viewer is left with a taste of almost pulp realism. (16/02/2024)