Cult Epics: Comprehensive Guide to Cult Cinema

By Cult Epics

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cult Epics – the controversial arthouse, horror and erotica video label – this commemorative hardcover book covers essential releases from filmmakers such as Tinto Brass, Fernando Arrabal, Radley Metzger, Walerian Borowcyzk, Jean Genet, Abel Ferrara, George Barry, Rene Daalder, Agusti Villaronga, Jorg Buttgereit, Gerald Kargl, Nico B, Irving Klaw, and pinup legend Bettie Page. Includes in-depth reviews of films, interviews, and essays on directors by film critics Nathaniel Thompson, Mark R. Hasan, Michael den Boer, Ian Jane, Stephen Thrower, Marcus Stiglegger, Heather Drain and others – fully illustrated in color with rare photos, poster art, and memorabilia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cult Epics
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999862711

Book preview

First Cult Video catalog, 1990

INTRODUCTION BY NICO B

Quentin Tarantino in front of the Cult Videotheek, Amsterdam, 1995

Igrew up in the countryside of Northern Holland and was first introduced to cinema through retrospectives of classic movie directors and stars, back when there were only two TV channels. In order to watch a movie in theaters, I had to ride my bicycle ten miles to the nearest village where I discovered horror and modern Hollywood films. However, rather than film, my first love was music. I remember listening to the radio all day long, taping every song I loved, and starting to collect vinyl at the tender age of eight. My first jobs in Amsterdam were as a freelance music magazine editor and a music distributor. However, other ambitions took my career along a different path.

I remember well my time spent at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague. We once had an experimental filmmaker named Franz Zwartjes as a guest, and he saw my first Super 8 film and asked me what it was about—but I did not tell him because it was too personal. Regardless, the fact that an experimental filmmaker had no clue as to what my film meant, made me feel like I was on the right track. At the same time, my teacher, filmmaker Babeth van Loo (whose Kiss Napoleon Goodbye I later released and who personally introduced me to Abel Ferrara), told me that the films I wanted to make would not get financial support and advised me that I would be better off making money first to finance my out-of-the-box projects.

I took her advice and shortly after, Cult Video, a sell-thru mailorder for rare but wanted films was born. As a movie fan for many years, I possessed an array of film rarities from swapping VHS tapes with other fans and recording Amsterdam pirate television channels at a time when the only other way to see such cult films as Salo, Clockwork Orange, Pink Flamingos, or other shockers, was in midnight theaters long after their original release. This all happened when sell-thru video did not yet exist and rental stores rarely sold their movies to consumers in Amsterdam—the city in which I lived by then. So, I went directly to the distribution companies, such as Warner Bros. and other studios. I entered their warehouses full of treasures and simply asked them if they would sell me a hundred copies of an original rental tape. My first catalog included rare films on VHS such as Eraserhead, Combat Shock, Nekromantik, and hundreds more. Pretty soon, I received requests from stores all over Europe to purchase VHS tapes from me. Holland was also known to have uncut versions since there was no censorship. Unlike the UK and Germany—this was video paradise. At that time, and still today, my main audience included horror fans, erotica collectors, and arthouse cinephiles.

Thereafter, I started my own rental and sell-thru stores—the Cult Videotheek (located in Amsterdam and Rotterdam), and a couple of franchise stores in other Dutch towns. With members including directors Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodriguez, the Cult Videotheek in Amsterdam grew an international popularity in the press. People soon began to ask me about films that simply were not available in Holland or Europe at the time.

Nico B and daughter Sienna, outside the Cult Videotheek, Amsterdam, 2001

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In 1991, I founded Cult Epics out of necessity. Around that time, I acquired the rights to, and released in the Benelux, films such as The Exotic Dances of Bettie Page, Henry: Portrait of a Serial killer, Cannibal Holocaust, Tokyo Decadence, and The Driller Killer. Subsequently, I started with Jan Doense (Weekend of Terror) the Cult Club—a cult film Sunday night at the Mazzo disco in Amsterdam with guests—and the sub-label Cult Classics on which we released the films of Ed Wood, Troma and some erotic classics. During this time, I traveled all across Europe to find rare tapes for rental and sell-thru. I even went to Hong Kong to meet with the executives of the film company Golden Harvest in an attempt to buy the rights to Bullet in the Head. Although it turned out that they no longer had the materials of the film, they took me to a screening room and showed me the latest John Woo release—Hard Boiled. I politely refused the deal for the Benelux rights for the movie, which seemed to me too polished at the time. I discovered some years later that Fox Lorber had bought the rights and paid five times more than what they offered me. My mind was set on more controversial, artistic, and original films and I continue to rarely follow the traditional outline of my profession, such as going to film markets and acquiring the rights that way. For me, it happens organically. I tend to meet a director or producer by chance, or through a friend, and from thereon release their works. This method has allowed me to work with such notables as Abel Ferrara, Tinto Brass, Radley Metzger, Anna Biller, Maria Beatty, Irving Klaw and, my favorite pin up, Bettie Page.

In 1997, I moved to the US and changed my name to Nico B. This altered name was not only much easier for Americans to pronounce than my real one, but also served as a pseudonym for the films I desired to direct. My first Cult Epics releases in the US, which were also released theatrically on 35mm, were Viva la Muerte, The Beast (La Bête), School of the Holy Beast, Un chant d’amour, and In a Glass Cage. Other films released theatrically in digital were Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, Score (the uncensored version), and Angst. These films were screened at such prestigious venues as the American Cinematheque, Lincoln Center Film Society, LACMA, UCLA/Hammer Museum, and Alamo Drafthouses. They were also included in a retrospective at Harvard University in 2011. In total, I have had over 150 US releases—some definitive versions, all available on DVD or Blu-ray, and some now out-of-print. I would like to take this opportunity to share these films with you now—in this book of Cult Epics.

Nico B, July 2017

Cult Videotheek poster design by Peter Pontiac, 1992

ARTHOUSE

UN CHANT D’AMOUR

CAT# CE055 (2-Disc Limited Edition DVD, 2007)

Starring Bravo, Jean Genet, Java, Coco Le Martiniquais, Lucien Sénémaud

Directed by Jean Genet

France / 1950 / B&W / 25 Mins / 1.33:1 / Silent

SPECIAL FEATURES

Disc One (25 Mins)

• New Film Transfer*

• Video Introduction by Jonas Mekas*

• Audio Commentary by Kenneth Anger*

Disc Two (98 Mins)

• Genet (France, 1981) – Documentary by Antoine Bourseiller (52 Mins)*

• Jean Genet (France, 1982) – Interview by Bertrand Poirot-Delpech (46 Mins)

• Still Photo Booklet

CAT# CE076 (Single-disc DVD, 2009)

SPECIAL FEATURES

* As Listed Above

Bravo as the older prisoner

Isolated and separated by brick walls, two inmates devise a way to communicate with each other...

Controversy followed French writer/author Jean Genet for most of his life. His mother was a prostitute who gave him up for adoption and he would spend most of his youth in prison where he started to write poetry before moving on to more ambitious works like a novel. While in prison he befriended filmmaker Jean Cocteau who helped to get some of his writing published. In 1950, Jean Genet would direct Un chant d’amour (A Song of Love), a film that was originally intended to be seen only by Parisian collectors of gay porn. The film would go on to achieve a wider audience and its provocative take on homosexuality would get it banned in many countries.

The story primary focuses on three characters; two prisoners, and a guard. At first, the narrative seems pretty straight forward until dream scenarios start to take hold. The lack of sound adds to the character’s isolation and after a few minutes one almost forgets that there is no sound as the story becomes totally immersing. It is reported that Jean Cocteau’s cinematographer shot this film. The look of the film bears all the style and mood one expects while watching a Cocteau film. There are a few moments of full frontal male nudity which for its time, and even by today’s standards, is considered taboo. Ultimately Un chant d’amour is thought provoking tale about sexual frustration and lack of human contact.

Cult Epics have done a remarkable job transfer Un chant d’amour from its original 35mm source. The image is properly framed in the films original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. There is noticeable print damage, still nothing that ever becomes to distracting. Overall considering this films age and rarity the transfer exceeds all expectations and then some.

The extras for this release are spread over two DVD’s. On the first disc they include an eight-minute introduction with director Jonas Mekas discussing Un chant d’amour, Jean Genet and how he smuggled in a most clever way a copy of the film into the United States. Rounding out the extras for the first DVD is an audio commentary with director Kenneth Anger who brings up some very interesting observations about the film and homosexuality in cinema in between his many moments where he pauses.

Extras on the second DVD include a 1981 documentary titled Genet which runs about 52 minutes in length and a 1982 documentary titled Jean Genet which runs about 45 minutes in length. Both documentaries are essentially lengthy interviews with Jean Genet who is candid with his comments about childhood, writing, cinema and various other subjects.

Also included with this release is an eight page booklet which comes with several black and white photos.

Jean Genet’s only foray as a film director gets a lavish special edition that comes with a wealth of extras that give deeper meaning about Genet and his controversial film.

Michael Den Boer

Lucien Sénémaud as the younger prisoner

Scene from Un chant d’amour

Bravo as the older prisoner

BLACK NIGHT/SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

CAT# CE058 (DVD, 2007)

Starring Fabrice Rodriguez, Marie Lecomte, Philippe Corbisier, Yves-Marie Gnahoua

Directed by Olivier Smolders

Belgium / 2004 / Color / 90 Mins / 1.78:1 French (optional English Subtitles) / Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Deleted Scenes

• Behind-the-Scenes

• Interview with Director Olivier Smolders

• About Black Night

• Short on Spiritual Exercises

CAT# CE059 (DVD, 2007)

Featuring Adoration, Mort à Vignole, L’amateur, Pensées et visions d’une tête coupée, Seuls, Ravissements, Point de fuite, L’art d’aimer, La philosophie dans le boudoir, Neuvaine

Directed by Oliver Smolders

Belgium / 1984-99 / B&W & Color / 180 Mins / 1.78:1 French (optional English Subtitles) / Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

SPECIAL FEATURES

• 48-Page Booklet on The Films of Oliver Smolders

• Court Circuit (6 Mins)

Court Circuit (3 Mins)

• Nuite Noire Clip

Scenes from Black Night

Unknown outside of die-hard arthouse circles, Belgian director Olivier Smolders has been turning out surreal, often inscrutable short films since the mid-eighties. His work teems with imagery involving human skin, religious iconography, and reptiles and insects, while his formal aesthetic style immediately invites comparisons with other European (or Eurofriendly) directors, most obviously Peter Greenaway (whose A Zed and Two Noughts is an obvious influence), Terry Gilliam, Francois Ozon, and Luis Buñuel. Eventually he completed a feature-length film, shot on DV but manipulated to look for all the world like a moody 35mm film, entitled Black Night (Nuit Noire), and its release has allowed his entire body of work to finally gain some appreciation in North America thanks to two releases from Cult Epics.

More a dreamlike experimental experience than a coherent narrative, Black Night begins with a pair of old men unveiling a small snowbound stage with two child puppets. Intercut with random shots of insects, the story focuses in on the two children, now real, a brother and sister. After the death of the young girl, the boy, Oscar (Rodriguez), grows up to take over as an animal conservator at his father’s Natural Sciences Museum, while the world has been consumed entirely in darkness except for a few fleeting seconds of sunlight each day (a device mirrored by the symbolic image of stage curtains opening and closing). One day he finds one of his coworkers, an African woman, ailing in his bed, and she and Oscar copulate (or do they?) before she dies. Then things get really strange, as his bed is taken over by a giant cocoon...

Though some critics may be tempted to find some deeper underlying meaning in all of the fragmented images of Black Night, the film really works best as a string of visually stunning scenes in which mankind and Mother Nature commingle in some sort of deeply uneasy symbiosis. The actors mainly function as additional visual objects, though Rodriguez does well in a leading role which requires him to devolve from a stoic, buttoned-up mannequin to a sweaty, frenzied wreck. And of course, this being an art film, there’s a lot of female nudity, though it’s rendered in a very anthropological fashion.

Cult Epics’ DVD of Black Night presents the film in an impressive anamorphic transfer that belies its digital video origins; the saturated colors and omnipresent black shadows come across just fine, and the French stereo soundtrack (with optional English subtitles) sounds clear throughout with a highly atmospheric and unnerving music score. Extras include a 17-minute reel of deleted scenes (nothing too remarkable, but a lot more bug footage), an amusing behind-the-scenes featurette that culminates on a remarkably naked and slimy note, an interview with Smolders about his maiden feature film voyage, an alternate festival version of his Spiritual Exercises short, and easily the most bizarre of all, a segment entitled "About Black Night with a French narrator rattling off a string of various symbolic associations tied to the film’s recurring visual images (a sample: An abyss, a hole, a natural orifice, a star, fear of the void, of being devoured, a white series: white particles, snow, spermatozoa, Japanese cherry trees, mother of pearl in a shell...").

If Black Night is the culmination of Smolders’ directorial mind to date, an additional Cult Epics DVD, Spiritual Exercises, shows the foundation being laid with ten short films showing his development over a fifteen year period. The films are shown in what appears to be no particular order. Adoration follows a cannibalistic murderer who uses a camera as a tool in his trade; Seuls presents an affecting portrait of autistic children; Point de fuite (the funniest of the bunch) presents a math teacher confounded when her entire class shows up nude; Mort à Vignole uses monochromatic home movie footage to document a watery tragedy; L’amateur features a fledgling filmmaker encountering the female forms in all its agerelated permutations; Neuvaine draws disturbing visual parallels between religious ceremony, drug use and animal slaughter; La philosophie dans le boudoir features explicit recitations from the famous Marquis De Sade novel over beautiful black and white portraits and figure studies of various actors (with Ravissements offering an alternate version of the same film); L’art d’aimer etches a portrait of residents at a nursing home talking about a very violent incident; and Pensées et visions d’une tête coupée (the longest of the films) features a strange art gallery guide explicating the meaning of a series of paintings as the visitors become more reflective of their surroundings.

The films are sourced from a variety of video sources of uneven quality as well as different aspect ratios; all are watchable but definitely show their age with the appearance of a video master from at least a decade ago. Still, how else are you gonna see ‘em? The collection comes with a hefty 48-page booklet containing essays and interviews about the film (in both English and French), two Court Circuit shorts summarizing his strongest images (Spiritual Exercises and Images Enamored of Love and Death), and a three-minute excerpt from Black Night.

Nathaniel Thompson

Scenes from Black Night

Still from Olivier Smolders’ short film Adoration (on the Spiritual Exercises DVD)

POPULATION: 1

CAT# CE068 (2-Disc Special Edition DVD, 2008)

Starring Tomata Du Plenty, Elvira, Sheela Edwards, Beck, Maila Nurmi

Directed by Rene Daalder

USA / 1986 / Color / 60 Mins / 1.33:1 English / Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

SPECIAL FEATURES

Disc One (77 Mins)

• Full Screen Restored Director’s Cut

• Live Music Video of LA Punk Legends The Screamers

• Unreleased Tracks by The Screamers and Sheela Edwards

• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery

• Original and New Trailers for Population: 1

• Scenes from Mensch, the Lost Prequel to Population: 1

• Palace of Variety Trailer

Disc Two (128 Mins)

• Je Maintiendrai – A Provocative Hollywood Spoof à la Spinal Tap

• Over 40 Minutes of Exclusive Concert Footage of The Screamers (Live at the Whisky a Go Go, 1979)

• Rare Footage Of Fluxus Artist Al Hansen

• Exclusive Outtakes Of Vampira’s Final Major Interview

• Punish Or Be Damned – A Tribute to Tomata du Plenty

• Girls – A Never-Before-Released Music Video by Penelope Houston

• Interview with Director Rene Daalder

• 4-Page Insert

Sheela Edwards in Population: 1

The origins of Population: 1 can be traced to the purposed film that was to feature punk rock band The Sex Pistols. Conflicts with the film’s director Russ Meyer and the eventual melt down of The Sex Pistols brought an end to this project.

A year later, Rene Daalder (Massacre at Central High) would find his muse after being introduced Tomata Du Plenty, the lead singer of the Screamers. Their first feature film collaboration, Mensch, would quickly find itself in trouble when the financiers would pull the plug a third of the way through the film. Down but not out, Rene Daalder would take the footage from the aborted Mensch and concert footage with the Screamers and use it as the starting point for what would ultimately become Population: 1.

The plot for Population: 1 revolves around the last man on earth who creates his own revisionist history of America. The film does a superb job moving the plot forward with its inventive musical numbers. Visually, director Rene Daalder creates a world that is utterly convincing. The main reason why Population: 1 works as well as it does is because of Tomata Du Plenty’s inspired performance. In a minor role is musician Beck playing the accordion! The film’s musical numbers are its greatest strengths. The score brilliantly fuses image with sound. Ultimately, Population: 1 is a satisfying mix of sight, sound, and satire that hasn’t lost any of its impact over the years.

Cult Epics presents Population: 1 in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Overall, considering the limitations of the source materials, the transfer looks very good with nicely saturated colors and the details looks reasonably sharp throughout.

This release comes with one audio option: a Dolby Digital stereo mix in English. The musical numbers fare best in the mix, as they all come off sounding robust. Even though the dialogue sounds a tad too thin at times, it is more than serviceable and gets the job done.

All around, Cult Epics has assembled a variety of interesting and informative extras, with the standout of the lot being the interview with director Rene Daalder. Overall, Population: 1 gets a definitive release from Cult Epics that leaves no stone unturned.

Michael Den Boer

HERE IS ALWAYS SOMEWHERE ELSE

CAT# CE069 (2-Disc Special Edition DVD, 2008)

Starring Bas Jan Ader

Directed by Rene Daalder

USA / 2007 / Color / 78 Mins / 1.33:1 English / Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

SPECIAL FEATURES

Disc One (103 Mins)

• Q&A from the LA Premiere at the Egyptian Theater

• Video Documentation of the 2008 Art Exhibit dedicated to Ader’s Legacy

Disc Two (41 Mins)

• The Film and Video Works of Bas Jan Ader

• Original Trailer

• 6-Page Insert

Still from Bas Jan Ader’s Broken Fall, 1971

Here is Always Somewhere Else is a documentary about Bas Jan Alder, a Dutch-born avant-garde artist and filmmaker. It was directed by Rene Daalder whose feature film debut, The White Slave, was at the time the most expensive film ever made in the Netherlands. Rene Daalder’s most notable films as a director include Population: 1 and Massacre at Central High.

The structure of Here is Always Somewhere Else is a probing look into the life, art, and mysterious disappearance of Bas Jan Alder in 1975. Alder’s final project, titled In Search of the Miraculous, had him traveling across the Atlantic Ocean. During his journey across the vast sea he disappeared. To this day only the boat that he was sailing in has been found.

The most interesting aspect of this documentary is how Rene Daalder connects his and Bas Jan Alder’s artistic journeys. Overall, Here is Always Somewhere Else is a riveting story about an artist willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to find the truth he was looking for.

Cult Epics presents Here is Always Somewhere Else in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The newly shot interviews are in excellent shape, with some of the clips from Bas Jan Alder films and home movies having noticeable wear and tear. Overall, the image quality fares rather well.

The audio is presented in a Dolby Digital stereo mix. Most of the dialogue is in English, while some is in Dutch with English subtitles. The audio sounds clean, clear, and evenly balanced.

Extras for this release have been spread over two discs. Extras on disc one include a trailer for Here is Always Somewhere Else, a promo trailer for an art exhibit that featured some of Bas Jan Alder’s art, and the main extra on disc one is a twenty three-minute Q&A from the Los Angeles premiere—which includes comments from director Rene Daalder, Bas Jan Alder’s widow (Mary Sue Ader-Anderson), and producer Aaron Ohlman.

Extras for disc two include seven of Bas Jan Alder’s short films: Fall 1, Fall 2, I’m Too Sad To Tell You, Broken Fall (Geometric), Broken Fall, Nightfall, and Primary Time. Also included with this release is a six-page booklet that includes images, a brief filmography, and a text essay about Bas Jan Alder, written by Rene Daalder. Overall, Cult Epics has put together an exceptional DVD release that pairs Bas Jan Alder’s rarely seen short films with Rene Daalder’s engrossing documentary—highly recommended.

Michael Den Boer

KISS NAPOLEON GOODBYE

CAT# CE070 (DVD, 2009)

Starring Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins Don Bajema, Huub van der Lubbe

Directed by Babeth van Loo

Netherlands / 1996 / Color / 35 Mins / 1.33:1 English / Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Disc Total Length: 95 Mins

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Lydia Lunch: Paradoxia and a Predator’s Diary – Spoken Word Performance and Interview (includes Live Music by Matrakamantra, with Joseph Budenholzer and Terry Edwards)

• Lydia Lunch: It’s A Man’s World – Spoken Word Performance

Henry Rollins and Lydia Lunch in Kiss Napoleon Goodbye

An ex-lover drives a wedge between a couple trying to rekindle their love. At the core of this plot is a story that delves into topics like jealously, rage, and obsession. The two lovers in the story are named Hedda and Neal. They have isolated themselves away from the rest of the world, in hopes of saving their crumbling love affair. Things become further strained when Hedda’s former lover named Jackson is invited to stay with them. Jackson’s arrival further escalates tension between Hedda and Neal. Besides the three main players. The plot also features flashbacks to other doomed relationships who have occupied the house where Hedda and Neal have been staying.

Visually, the film takes full advantage of its minimal locations. The one area where this film perhaps comes up short is that the story and its characters are not given enough time to be fully fleshed out. The main creative force behind Kiss Napoleon Goodbye is Lydia Lunch, who co-writes, co-directs and stars as Hedda.

Lydia Lunch began her journey as an artist, and as the lead singer of the new wave band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. Over the years, she continued to evolve as an artist with her spoken word performances, poetry, and music. Additionally, she has appeared in numerous films including Asia Argento’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

The two other main roles in this short film are Henry Rollins (in his first starring role) as Jackson, and Don Bajema in the role of Neal. The three leads are all very good in their respective roles. Ultimately, it is not surprising that Lydia Lunch gives the films stand-out performance, since her character is the forbidden fruit that both Jackson and Neal lust after.

Cult Epics presents Kiss Napoleon Goodbye in its original 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. Colors and flesh tones fare well. Despite the limitations of the source material, the image is never too distracting.

Two extras have been included with this release: a five-minute spoken word piece, titled Lydia Lunch: It’s a Mad World, and a 51-minute documentary, titled Lydia Lunch: Paradoxia and a Predator’s Diary. This documentary is a collection of spoken word and musical performances, which are wrapped around comments from Lydia Lunch.

Overall, Kiss Napoleon Goodbye makes its way to DVD via Cult Epics’ well-rounded DVD that fans of Lydia Lunch will want to pick up as soon as possible.

Michael Den Boer

SLOGAN

CAT# CE071 (2-Disc Special Edition DVD, 2008)

Starring Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Andréa Parisy, Daniel Gélin

Directed by Pierre Grimblat

France / 1969 / Color / 90 Mins / 1.78:1 French (optional English Subtitles) Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Interview with Actress Jane Birkin and Director Pierre Grimblat

• Interview with Director Pierre Grimblat

• Interview with French Writer Frederic Beigbeder

• TV Promo Interviews with Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin & Pierre Grimblat (1970)

• Original French Theatrical Trailer*

CAT# CE062 (Single-Disc DVD, 2008)

SPECIAL FEATURES

* As Listed Above

Serge Gainsbourg in Slogan

Pierre Grimblat’s Slogan—the film where stars Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin fell in love, and soon after married—owes a lot to Richard Lester’s own mix of fashionable cinematography and bonkers editing in films like The Knack… and How to Get It (1965), and his Beatles couplet, A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965).

On one level, Grimblat’s movie is a satire on the pretentiousness of popular commercials made by creative admen trying to keep up with what’s new now, and five minutes from now. The ad spoofs for men’s cologne and women’s undies peppering the romantic plot are brilliantly absurd, and Grimblat often intercuts print magazine stills of posing models between the behind-the-scenes footage of commercial director Serge Fabergé (Gainsbourg), as he sets up shots and provides motivation for his actors and blankfaced models.

The machinations and insanity of achieving something voguish are also captured in a great sequence where Fabergé and his cinematographer film two actors from inside the hood of a car driving madly down a snaking highway. One gets a sense Claude Lelouche wasn’t the only speed-obsessed director who liked fast cars on film, as all the car and Venice boat scenes in Slogan have vehicles driven with extreme recklessness.

Grimblat also interjects the absurdity of Fabergé’s working environment into the character’s personal life by having the control freak snap his fingers to eject characters from scenes because they’re annoying him; whether it’s an extension of Fabergé’s God complex from the film set or Grimblat making sure we don’t take the film seriously is up to debate, but it certainly adds to the film’s weird style.

Taken in with current aesthetics, Slogan feels very modern because it compacts its narrative by hacking out sequences we know, as wizened filmgoers, would be dull and whiny and formulaic; it’s no different than the bonkers pacing in the actioner Crank (2006), a film that maintains its own absurd worldview.

Italian 45 single of the theme to Slogan

Rare Norwegian 45 single of the theme to Slogan

UK 45 single reissue from 1974 of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg’s 1969 pop sensation Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus

Grimblat’s decision to treat the romance (initially) as a parody means he saturates the romantic interludes with massive close-ups and reaction shots of the burgeoning lovers (heightening their giddy banter at one point with whip-pans, until the couple kiss in a two-shot), and the whole film begins as a media, pop culture, and romance spoof until, as viewers, we realize the chemistry between actors Birkin and Gainsbourg is very real, charming, and perhaps natural, because according a 2009 documentary by filmmaker Philippe Labro (Légende: Serge Gainsbourg), Grimblat’s original proposal to Gainsbourg seemed inspired by the composer’s own persona of a 40-yearold, playing Pygmalion with young beautiful women before destroying each blissful lifestyle.

Whether Grimblat was aware of it, the emotions from his leads slowly rise above the satire, and the film runs into problems where scenes plotted out as humorous—like Fabergé introducing Evelyne to his social clique with a singular and oftrepeated phrase, My little home breaker; and an angry dinner scene in front of the TV with a ridiculous ad jingle playing in the background—become compressed little snapshots of a disintegrating love affair.

Fabergé ultimately devolves into a scheming, cruel bastard, and a concluding argument in a car gets very nasty, and pretty much quashes any sympathy we may have for the oncecharming bigamist.

Slogan’s shift into melodrama and realist social commentary feels out of place, so while the finale ultimately collectively liberates the director, his long-suffering wife, and the naïve gamine (Evelyne) he stole from her first fiancé, it kind of ends the film on a bit of a downer, since neither’s next step is presaged (although the final shot infers Fabergé’s cyclical, addictive, womanizing behavior remains quite resilient in spite of the recent heartache).

Most of the film’s dialogue was looped in the studio to cover up edit flaws, location noise, and continuity gaffes, although Grimblat doesn’t really care if mouths are moving in car shots, and spoken words are sometimes heard in place of sound effects and music.

Gainsbourg’s original score is comprised of an original tune (very complimentary towards the film) as well as some satirical percussion tracks, although most of the cues tend to repeat their opening bars until an inevitable fadeout or straight cut.

The only clever cue that has some subtextual bite is played by an orchestra in a later Venice scene where Fabergé and his wife put on a fake all’s well façade after Evelyne has fled to London. As the orchestra plays a theme variation, one hears a somewhat camouflaged version of the Dies Irae doom and gloom liturgy from the brass, exaggerating Fabergé’s sadness into bathos.

Disc one of Cult Epics’ new 2-disc set (replacing a prior single-disc release in 2008) offers the film with its original French mono track, and English subtitles.

While the colors are fairly strong in the transfer, one suspects the label was stuck with TF1’s own NTSC down-conversion. Details are a bit soft, and there’s obvious shimmering, strobing, and blur when the camera pans with onscreen movement. Grimblat does play with film speeds with his fake ads, and in a few dramatic montages.

Disc two features all the goodies present on the French Region 2 set from TF1, and for Birkin-Gainsbourg fans, that makes this set a must-have. Prior interviews with Birkin regarding her career and relationship with Gainsbourg have tended to be brief; she’s always been very open, affectionate, and passionate, but the lengthy segments in this set are very casual, and often give Birkin a lot of space to reflect on her very unique life as a Brit who became a star in France, all because of Slogan.

Prior to starring in Grimblat’s film, Birkin had appeared in small roles, notably in the topless studio tussle in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1965), and was also known as Mrs. John Barry for a time. During shooting, she was referred by Grimblat to director Jacques Deray, who in turn cast her in 1969’s The Swimming Pool (La Piscine). By the end of