The Horde (2009)

Dir: YANNICK DAHAN and BENJAMIN ROCHER
Country: FRANCE

aka:
La horde

French horror cinema is enjoying a period of unparalleled creative success, and it comes as no surprise to me that this coincides with a period of civil unrest in the country. Issues such as the economy, pensions, the retirement age, and immigration have seen citizens take to the streets in protest. There is a noble tradition of striking in France, a tradition that seems in large part to have the sympathy of the population (an attitude which is quite different in the UK for example) and this melting pot of political upheaval and uncertainty surfaces quite notably in the latest gore soaked French horror film The Horde. The Horde follows in the footsteps of Switchblade Romance (2004), Frontier(s) (2007), Inside (2007) and Martyrs (2008) in its unflinching portrayal of blood and guts and while it lacks the subtlety and intelligence of Them (2006 - for my money the most accomplished French horror film of this recent new wave) it makes up for this with its political overtones. Several of these major French horror films are ‘home invasion’ narratives, they offer a bourgeois vision of bland suburbia which is then shattered by the return of past events. The Horde situates its action in a rotting apartment block in Northern Paris, flipping the convention of middle class point of view to the perspective of rogue cops, violent gangsters, and the disenfranchised working class.

L'enfance nue (1968)

Dir: MAURICE PIALAT
Country: FRANCE

aka:
Naked Childhood

For the last five or six years I’ve been on/off collecting a series of DVD’s released by Eureka under their ‘Masters of Cinema’ imprint. In many ways this label is the nearest we have in the UK to the Criterion Collection, and they offer a wide range of world and art cinema in the best possible transfers. Between 2008 and 2010 ‘Masters of Cinema’ released a number of films by French filmmaker Maurice Pialat. I had steadfastly avoided these because I’d never heard of the man, but recently I took a punt on his 1968 debut feature film L’enfance nue (translates as Naked Childhood) and was very glad that I did. Pialat had directed the short film L’Amour Existe (1960), a dour and depressing travelogue through the working class suburbs of Paris, but little in that film (which is included on the Masters of Cinema DVD) could prepare one for the piercing naturalism of the startling L’enfance nue.

The Iron Rose (1973)

Dir: JEAN ROLLIN
Country: FRANCE

aka:
La rose de fer
Rose of Iron

The production of horror films and works of fantasy have been sporadic during the history of French cinema. Unlike the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy or even Germany, French horror has never successfully coalesced into a cycle or movement. This is somewhat of a surprise when we consider that much of the visceral quality of horror owes its origins to the French theatrical tradition known as Grand Guignol. Furthermore the elements of fantasy and dislocation that form the backbone of horror’s nightmare logic can be seen in the experimental work of the surrealist art movement - which found its greatest prominence in France in the 1920’s. The work of Georges Franju in the 1940’s and 1950’s offered a link to these past traditions, most notably in his abattoir documentary Blood of the Beasts (1949) and his outstanding cosmetic surgery nightmare Eyes Without a Face (1959). But it would be the offbeat cinematic offerings of Jean Rollin that would make this link to the past most implicit. Whether you rate his films or not his importance within French traditions of fantasy and surrealism are notable.

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Dir: JEAN ROLLIN
Country: FRANCE

aka:
La morte vivante
Lady Dracula
Zombie Queen

The Living Dead Girl is a curious and unusually accessible entry into the filmography of the French master of the surrealist macabre Jean Rollin. In comparison to prior outings this is something of a bloodbath, and the camera is strangely unflinching in its presentation of the red stuff. It would seem that wider trends within the horror genre had finally forced Rollin in this direction, but fortunately his is able to accommodate this without compromising his strange, ethereal, poetic and arty vision. This time Rollin and his co-writer Jacues Raif conflate the mythologies of the vampire and the zombie to create a haunting piece which still retains a freshness, and would certainly have seemed refreshing in 1982. Instead of the grey faced automatons of Romero, or the rotting cadavers of Fulci here we have the stately vision of Francoise Blanchard as the eponymous reanimated corpse. Her dependence and hunger for blood creates a shattering moral dilemma for this corpse - because as she begins to slowly reclaim the sensations, emotions, and pleasures of life her slavery to blood begins to repulse her. Her addiction is all consuming and few horror films articulate with such poetry and despair the self-revulsion of an addict.