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Released by: Olive Films
Released on:
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Daniel Mesguich, Cyrielle Clair, Gabrielle Lazure
Year: 1983
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The Movie:
Directed and co-written by Alain Robbe-Grillet (with Frank Verpillat making up the other half of the writing team), 1983's La Belle Captive sees the director returning to familiar territory mixing up art-house style, sexual hang-ups and fairly traditional film noir thrills in one tightly knit ninety minute package.
The story follows Walter Raim (Daniel Mesguich), a killer for hire who is employed by a clandestine organization where he reports to his superior, a woman named Sara Zeitgeist (Cyrielle Clair). She gives him his latest assignment - deliver a letter to a man named Henri de Corinthe. This seems easy enough and so he sets out to take care of things but on the way to his destination he encounters a beautiful woman tied up and lying alone in the middle of the road. Of course, he stops and then takes this stranger off to a strange mansion where a ritualistic party of some sort is going on, attended to be a group of rich, older bourgeoisie types. Walter ties and succeeds to get one of the partygoers to help him with the woman, named Marie-Ange (Gabrielle Lazure), and he agrees to let them in, taking them to and them locking them inside a room on the upper floor.
With no one else in the room with them, Walter starts to see strange things occur - the woman frees herself from her bindings and then her clothes start to disappear. They sleep together and then the next morning she's gone, disappeared without a trace. Now obsessed with her, Walter heads out into the world to try and find her and figure out what exactly happened that night…
As is typical of Robbe-Grillet's films, La Belle Captive deals implicitly with themes of obsession, mystery and sex. We see all of this unfold from Walter's point of view and so it's him that we're supposed to sympathize with - and we do. It's this mysterious woman, this 'Marie-Ange' who he becomes so thoroughly infatuated with, however, who we want to spend the most time with. Of course the obvious reason for this is her physical appearance. Gabrielle Lazure is a stunningly beautiful woman, there's no question about it. Equally important to the film's core, however, is the whole mystery surrounding who she is, how she wound up in the road bound in the first place, and of course, what really happened in that room with Walter. There's definitely a very serious case of 'femme fatale' syndrome going on here.
Performances are strong across the board, but done in a way that you could say is typical of the director's work. We get a certain sense of distance from Mesguich as the male lead, but then, he is playing an assassin and as such, there should be some coldness to his character. He looks the part - he's slick, cool and on the surface at least, a tough guy. The enigmatic Lazure plays 'sexy and mysterious' to perfection and while she doesn't have loads and loads of dialogue here she's able to communicate so much with body language that it doesn't matter.
Robbe-Grillet paces the movie well enough and channels, obviously so, the work of Rene Margritte, the Belgian surrealist artist whose work typically challenged the viewer's perception of reality in terms of what was shown compared to what he would insist his paintings represented. One of his paintings is displayed prominently early in the film and credited to him, Robbe-Grillet makes no attempt to mask where the inspiration for this picture came from. Going into it with that in mind, the more surreal aspects of the film, and they are plentiful, make sense. Henri Alekan's cinematography is flawless. There's stellar attention to detail evident in each composition and truly beautiful things are done throughout the movie with color and with light. This would again seem to stem back to creating a filmed version of Margritte's work. We see this not only in the compositions but in the attire worn by certain cast members as well - many of the fashions on display look to have walked out of the past and some of the 'period attire' would be from the era in which the painter was most active. To summarize, many of the characters, those in the background and the bit part players especially, look like they could have walked out of one of his paintings, which is entirely the point. Seeing how Robbe-Grillet's style meshes with Margritte's makes for some interesting visuals and plenty of food for thought. Obviously the film can and will be intentionally obtuse at times, and the ending might seem a little forced, but La Belle Captive is, for the vast majority of its running time, a beautiful fever dream worth experiencing.
Video/Audio/Extras:
La Belle Captive debuts on Blu-ray in North America from Olive Films framed in its proper aspect ratio of 1.66.1 widescreen. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer boasts fantastic color reproduction and strong black levels throughout. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and there are no issues with noise reduction or edge enhancement. Fine grain is abundant throughout but actual print damage is never much of an issue, but you might spot the occasional white speck here and there. For the most part though, this is a pretty clean looking image. The transfer is free of any obvious edge enhancement or noise reduction, this is quite film like and nicely detailed with good texture and depth.
Audio chores are handled by a French language DTS-HD Mono track with optional subtitles provided in English only. There are no problems here, the single channel mix sounds just fine. Dialogue is properly balanced and the score has solid depth and range. Hiss and distortion are never an issue and the subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read.
Aside from a menu and chapter selection, the only extra on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer.
The Final Word:
La Belle Captive wraps its psychosexually twisted narrative in some gorgeous noir-inspired visuals to make for a pretty compelling watch. The film borders on the surreal at times but never loses touch with its plot while the dedicated performances and incredible production values ensure that the film stimulates visually as well as mentally. Olive Films may not have rolled out the red carpet in the extras department but the movie looks and sounds great on this disc. For fans of Alain Robbe-Grillet, this is a must have.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
