IMMORTAL SPECTRES FROM THE PAST Part One

                                                                                                                                                 MALPERTUIS (1971: Dir. Harry Kumel)

Some films haunt you forever. Many years ago I had a film professor who showed us in class, his favourite cult film, the neglected Belgian fantasy-horror Malpertuis directed by Harry Kumel, famous for his outre vampire film Daughters of Darkness (1971). At the time I vowed not to be drawn in by his cultish obsession and despite being intrigued by its surreal imagery I put the film aside in my mind, but months later the worm turned. Without prompting, its dream-like properties started to surface again in my thoughts. Soon I was craving the experience of seeing it again if only to confirm its power over me. Unfortunately, the herculean lengths that my prof regaled us with, regarding attempts to acquire his pirated copy, had proven all too true. In the era of VHS, the film was unobtainable, except by the most clandestine of means. Bereft, all I could summon up in my mind were disconnected scenes of phantasmagorical characters, and indelibly malefic production design. In the meantime I read, and was suitably impressed by, the eponymous novel by Belgian fantasist Jean Ray, upon which the film was based. Finally in 2004, the Belgium Film Archive undertook a restoration, and in the process revealed that the version previously available was in fact a bastardized cut of the film, edited for its Cannes Film Festival premiere without the approval of its director. A two-disc all-region PAL DVD was released soon after, containing both cuts of the film and featuring a cornucopia of extras compiled by Kumel himself. Re-visiting the movie after decades of yearning was inevitably a slight disappointment, but shortly after seeing the directors' cut for the first time, its spell was cast over me anew. I luxuriated once again in its one-of-a kind casting of seemingly mis-matched European stars including a ferret-like Michel Bouquet, licking his lips over the girlish, sexy, and mysterious Susan Hampshire (in three roles), as an elephantine Orson Welles oversees the action from his engulfingly commodius bed. The audacity of its premise in an age before the unlimited special effects tools of CGI might limit its impact on contemporary audiences, regardless one cannot help but marvel at the nightmarish atmosphere Kumel created within his limited means. I still watch in awe, as it reaches its outlandish climax with a confidence of style and mood that makes Malpertuis a lost classic of its genre. DVD REGION 1 & 2