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Un Chant D'Amour

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    Ian Jane
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  • Un Chant D'Amour

    Released by: Cult Epcs
    Released on: 2/27/2007
    Director: Jean Genet
    Cast: N/A
    Year: 1950

    The Movie:

    The late French writer/novellist Jean Genet had an interesting life. He was born to a woman who worked as a prostitute and put up for adoption a year after he was born.

    In his youth he was a criminal of sorts, and he wound up in prison for a while for theft. At eighteen, he enlisted only to be dishonorably discharged shortly thereafter when caught in a homosexual relationship. From there he cruised around France for a while making a living as a prostitute and thief, periodically doing stints in jail. While in prison he started writing poetry and eventually a novel and, with some help from Jean Cocteau, he got his work published for the first time. For the next few years he was quite productive, publishing novels, plays and poetry at a rapid pace and in 1950 he decided to try his hand at filmmaking for the first and only time. The result of this endeavour is Un Chant D'Amour, a short twenty-six minute film that detailed in fairly explicit detail the homosexual fantasies of two men and a warden in prison intended for collectors of homosexual pornography. The film went on to be quite controversail due to its graphic depictions and Genet would later deny his involvement with the picture and the film has been banned in different territories at different times.

    There's not much plot to the picture - it simply shows how these lonely people want to communicate and be with one another, drifting from one character to the next and showing them acting on their more primal impulses.

    The title of the film, which translates into English as A Song Of Love, is quite appropriate given that the movie plays out more like a piece of music or a poem rather than a traditional narrative film. Shot on a soundstage with artificial cells, the picture is very well shot and lit quite effectively making use of shadows and contrast to create an otherworldly environment. We see how the authority figure, in this case the warden of the prison, controls the lives of the two inmates and how they strive to stop that from happening through their secret communications. It's quite antisocial but very fitting in the greater context of what Genet represented and the subjects that he wrote about, much of which seems somewhat autobiographical in nature.

    The fact that the film is completely silent adds to the desolation that the two incarcerated men must be feeling and the camera watches them with a very voyeuristic eye. We're given the distinct impression that while these men are locked up, they're very much doing everything they can to compete with their captivity and that the sexual acts we see on display are as much a form of rebellion a they are of lust.

    The film can be interpreted as literal or as a sort of twisted fever dream playing out in the warden's subconciousness - either way the end result is the same and Un Chant D'Amour is a fairly transgressive work of arthouse cinema that sticks in the viewers mind whether they want it there or not. It's a very strong film with memorable and bizzare imagery and stunning cinematography and at the same time it's also a very simple movie - it can be both soothing and completely distrubing, often times both at the same time.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    The film was shot on 35mm according to the commentary track but it was composed for a fullframe presentation, which is how it is shown on this DVD. The source material was obviously not in perfect condition and so there is a fair bit of print damage and grain but otherwise things look pretty decent here and whatever defects there may be can definitely be attributed to the source material rather than the authoring of the disc itself.

    Well, the movie was made as a silent film and that's exactly how Cult Epics presents it on this DVD. There's no audio at all (the commentary not withstanding), not even a musical track playing over top.

    Amazingly enough, this release is actually a two-disc set and it serves as more of a tribute to Jean Genet than anything else. On the first disc we start with an audio commentary from Kenneth Anger. You'd think that Anger, being an interesting director in his own right, would be full of insightful observations and criticisms but unfortunately he spends a fair amount of time simply breathing heavily in the microphone and making strange noises with his throat. He does talk to the film's merits in that he points out interesting things about the cinematography and gives us as much of a background on the picture as he can but this would probably have made a better interview than a commentary. Regardless, Anger points out how homosexuality was a cinematic taboo when this was made and how the prison cells we see were actually made on a stage. He also notes the lighting and details some of the history surrounding the film's controversy. What is obvious is that Anger really appreciates this film it's just unfortunate that he couldn't discuss it in more detail.

    The first disc also includes an optional on-camera video introduction for the feature courtesy of director Jonas Mekas who smuggled the film into the United States by cutting it into pieces and then reassembling it so that it could be projected.

    The second disc contains two featurettes, the first of which is Antoine Bourseiller's 1981 documentary, Genet, which clocks in at roughly fifty-two minutes.

    The second featurette is Jean Genet, a forty-five minute long interview with the writer/director conducted by Bertrand Poirot-Delpech in 1982.

    Included inside the packaging is a nice little booklet containing some black and white stills from the movie.

    The Final Word:

    While the content and subject matter might limit the film's appeal, Genet's Un Chant D'Amour is an interesting and historically significant short film that is given quite a lavish treatment on this two-disc special edition (limited to 2500 pieces) from Cult Epics.

    For more information, hit the Cult Epics website by clicking here.
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