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BLACK MOON
A dark, freaky headscratcher from a filmmaker beloved by art snobs the world over: the French Louis Malle, best known for refined fare like ATLANTIC CITY, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE and VANYA ON 42nd STREEET. BLACK MOON is an intriguing anomaly in Malle’s filmography, and a definite standout in the category of surreal, quasi-futuristic baloney.
The Package
This film was actually part of a fairly
popular seventies tradition, during
which established European filmmakers turned to bizarre ALICE IN
WONDERLAND-inspired flights of fancy--see Roman Polanski’s WHAT (1972) and
Claude Chabrol’s ALICE OR THE LAST ESCAPADE (1977), both of which have much in
common with BLACK MOON.
In truth, Louis Malle (who died in 1995) always had a dark side. He was a
close friend of the famed surrealist Luis Bunuel, and made a number of decidedly
Bunuelian films during the sixties and seventies. These include THE FIRE
WITHIN, a disturbing evocation of alcoholism and desperation; the
semi-autobiographical MURMER OF THE HEART, which climaxes with its young hero
having sex with his own mother; and 1975’s BLACK MOON, surely the strangest and
most horrific of all Malle’s films.
Made shortly before Malle quit his native France for the more lucrative
shores of Hollywood, BLACK MOON was shot in and around the filmmaker’s own
country home. It contained a cast of counterculture icons that included British
sexpot Kathryn Harrison and ex-Andy Warhol acolyte Joe Dallessandro, and
featured script contributions by Luis Bunuel’s daughter-in-law Joyce. In the
manner of many European productions of the time, the film was shot and released
in English and French language versions (Malle always claimed he preferred the
former), and died a quick death critically and financially. It remains an
extremely scarce film that has never appeared on VHS or DVD in the US. My
recommendation? Track down a copy of BLACK MOON in place of MY DINNER WITH
ANDRE.
The Story
Lily, a virginal young woman, drives through an unidentified rural
countryside. Her troubles start when she runs over a skunk; she continues on,
plowing through a roadblock set up by machinegun wielding, gas mask wearing
women. The road eventually becomes impassable by car, so Lily is forced to
continue on foot through an increasingly bizarre landscape in which flowers cry
out when they’re stepped on, animals talk, naked children frolic and a unicorn
is glimpsed.
Lily ends up in a chateau inhabited by an old woman who it seems can read
Lily’s mind, at least when the coot’s not reciting details about Lily’s every
action into a Dictaphone. The old woman also has a bunch of alarm clocks that
all go off at once...shortly after which she unexpectedly drops dead.
Lily runs into the woman’s son outside the chateau;
he’s a studly mute who shows absolutely no emotion upon learning of his mother’s
passing. But then the old goat’s not really dead, which becomes evident when
her seductive twentyish daughter revives her ma by sticking one of her breasts
in her mouth!
Amid such insanity, Lily fortifies herself by looking for the unicorn she
spotted earlier. After a lengthy search through the chateau’s grounds she
finally tracks down the animal, only to have it telepathically berate her in a
stern ladyish voice.
Lily heads back inside the chateau, where she plays a piano sonata for the
old woman, her kids and the many naked children who suddenly pack the house--yet
when Lily finishes playing she finds the place empty. But then the unicorn
reappears. This time Lily figures out how to please the critter: by removing
her blouse and offering herself to it!
The Direction
It could be argued that the true auteur of BLACK MOON is not Louis Malle
but cinematographer Sven Nykvist, a true master of the form who’s worked for
filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen. Nykvist’s gorgeously rendered
imagery, bathed in seductive pastoral hues, is among his finest-ever work. The
film has an appropriately hallucinatory ambiance that falls somewhere between
fairly tale and nightmare, and Nykvist’s photography is a large part--indeed,
perhaps the largest part--of the effect.
Not that Malle himself doesn’t deserve credit. His pacing is excellent,
deliberate but never punishing, and he does a fine job relating his surreal
narrative almost entirely through images, with very little dialogue to help
things along.
This isn’t to say, however, that the film is a complete
or even partial success. It’s silly and inconsequential (I’ve no idea what the
Hell the title is supposed to mean), and ultimately feels experimental above all
else. As we all know, experiments have an equal chance of success or failure,
and BLACK MOON, unfortunately, pretty much falls into the latter category.
Vital Statistics
BLACK MOON
NEF/Bioskop Film
Director: Louis
Malle
Producer: Claude Najar
Screenplay: Louis
Malle, Ghislain Uhry, Joyce Bunuel
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Editing: Suzanne Baron
Cast: Cathryn Harrison, Therese Giehse, Joe Dallesandro, Alexandra Stewart