Litan (1982)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky
I don't know where to begin with Litan. The film opens with a barrage of surreal imagery. Masked figures dance, and play music. A man on a high wire falls off a motorcycle. A man is killed. It's something of a relief when it turns out to be a dream sequence. But when the woman who was dreaming wakes up, she's in a panic. The man who died in her dream was her lover. As she goes about trying to find, and warn him about what she thinks was a premonition, the reality we expect to reassert itself never shows up. She goes out into the street of the small French village of Litan, and is met by throngs of masked figures. Many are menacing, and seem about to assault her. Other people seem to be almost comatose. A vacant eyed bus driver runs a man straight into a building, leaving a bloody mess, and then wanders away.
It seems that today is some kind of annual festival, but that doesn't begin to explain the strange behaviour on display. When people speak, they often seem to be repeating stock phrases. Statements and responses don't always match up. When she finally finds her lover (this is a French film), after almost being assaulted by one of his co-workers, he has young boy with him who has been injured. They take him, and his father to the hospital, where they promptly disappear. This leads them to the police, who are so aggressively unhelpful Loverboy assaults the chief, and the rest of the movie is a chase, as the town becomes more and more apocalyptic.
Obviously there's a lot going on in the film. There are murders, and then the dead begin to inhabit the bodies of the living. It's all because of bizarre experiments/sorcery going on at the hospital. I quickly decided that understanding the convoluted plot wasn't something I needed to worry too much about. Instead I just allowed my self to be carried along by dream logic. Luckily the imagery of the film is incredible, and if I was often confused, I was never bored.
This film is as much a surreal black comedy (Three men in pig masks, murder a butcher)as it is a horror movie. It never seem that interested in scares as such, though it uses horrific imagery, and genre plot devices throughout. I would still heartily recommend this film, but only to those viewers who have patience of arty European cinema, or perhaps even arty European theatre. The acting was a bit flat, but that didn't bother me too much. The score was really good, and had Euro-Horror/Giallo feel, though it was sometimes used a little awkwardly.
After all that if this sounds like your cup of tea, by all means check it out.
And now the pics:
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