Parky at the Pictures (DVD 31/7/2014)

Born in Kwilcz near Poznan on 2 September 1923, Walerian Borowczyk studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków before producing lithographs and film posters. Having won a national prize for his posters in 1953, he began specialising in surrealist shorts and comic abecedaria. Occasionally collaborating with Jan Lenica, Borowczyk often came into conflict with the Communist authorities with the likes of Once Upon a Time..., Strip-Tease, Unrequited Feelings, Banner of Youth (all 1957), House and School (both 1958).

Consequently, he relocated to Paris, where he teamed with Chris Marker on The Astronauts (1959). Experimenting with stop-motion techniques, he enhanced his reputation with such items as Encyclopedie de Grand-Maman (1962), Renaissance (1963), The Game of Angels (1964), Rosalie (1966), Diptych (1967), The Phonograph (1969) and A Private Collection (1972). Doubtless, these shorts will be discussed during one of the special events assessing Borowczyk's achievement. But, fret not that the NFT has opted not to show any of the shorts so vital to his evolution as a film-maker, as several key titles will be released on DVD by Arrow later this year (see below).

In 1967, Borowczyk made his feature bow with The Theatre of Mr and Mrs Kabal, a dystopic grotesquerie that reacquainted audiences with the characters first seen five years earlier in The Concert of Mr and Mrs Kabal. Eschewing linear narrative and often defying interpretation (and logic), the action mixes deceptively simple monochrome line drawings, cut-outs and live-action images to examine the bizarre relationship between the eponymous couple. Borowczyk himself makes a cameo, as he converses with Mrs K, whose dialogue pops up as print on the screen to translate sounds that resemble those that might be made by a malfunctioning computer. It's easy to see why Terry Gilliam would be such a fan, as the couple encounter all manner of eccentric creatures and infernal machines, when not experiencing weird dreams or inflicting gleeful cruelties upon one another. Yet, while Borowczyk's imagination and ingenuity is never in question, this existential curio unquestionably provides a consistent challenge.

Borowczyk moved into live-action features with Goto, Island of Love (1968), an absurdist allegory set on a fortress isle that had been cut off from the mainland by an 1887 seaquake. The current governor, Pierre Brasseur, is a petty generalissimo who ensures full employment among his subjects by giving them menial jobs and keeps down the prison numbers by letting criminals fight it out in trials by combat. Contact with the outside world is forbidden and he pushes a stray rowing boat out to sea when he suspects that wife Ligia Branice intends using it to escape with her riding instructor, Jean-Pierre Andréani. Despite having thrown himself on Branice's mercy after besting Michel Thomas on the execution stage, ex-convict Guy Saint-Jean is convinced that something amiss is going on behind Brasseur's back.

So, he exploits his position as assistant to flycatcher, dog keeper and boot polisher to René Dary (who is also Branice's father) to earn Brasseur's trust. However, he also urges her prostitute mother, Ginette Leclerc, to wear her daughter's cast-off clothes so he can fulfil his depraved fantasies. Having strangled Dary, Saint-Jean borrows Brasseur's binoculars to prove his wife's infidelity. Foolish beyond belief, Brasseur gives Saint-Jean a gun with which to dispose of Andréani. However, the scheming courtier uses the weapon to shoot the cuckolded dictator, usurp power and go after Branice. But she would rather embrace death than such a monster.

Filling the mise-en-scène with a wide range of optical instruments and viewing devices, as well as musical boxes and phonographs, Borowczyk revels in the self-reflexive mischief of this exquisite meld of the cinematic, the theatrical and the operatic. Alleviating Guy Durban's monochrome visuals with flashes of extravagant colour, he creates a cartoonish feel that is reinforced by the pantomimic performances and the fairytale eccentricity of a scenario that owes much to Kafka, Beckett, lonesco and the Theatre of the Absurd. The original cut ran for over three hours, but the truncated version still contains around 800 shots, the majority of which are static and make evocative use of the irregular shapes found in nature and the grids, lattices, peepholes and secret openings within the pseudo-expressionist décor to convey the oppressive rigidity that facilitates the regime's many manifestations of tyranny.

Branice (who was married to Borowczyk) took the title role in Blanche (1971), a treatise on innocence, lust, suspicion and power that once again feels like a grim fairytale. Set in France in the 13th century, the action borrows from the Juliusz Slowacki play, Mazepa, and centres on the second wife of venerable baron Michel Simon, who is utterly devoted to him despite the chasm in age. However, Branice's ravishing beauty bewitches stepson Lawrence Trimble, who has just returned home after fighting in the Crusades. She chastely resists his advances, but visiting monarch Georges Wilson and his page, Jacques Perrin, also fall in love with Branice on first sight. In an act of cynical benevolence, Wilson informs Simon of Perrin's passion and promises to mete out a fitting punishment.

Feeling betrayed when the king fails to keep his word, Simon asks Trimble to kill Perrin in a duel. Yet, even though the courtier gets the upper hand, he spares Trimble out of pity for his lovesickness. Wilson shows no such mercy, however, and plans to have Perrin arrested. He visits Branice in her chamber wearing Perrin's cloak, only for Trimble to wound him in the hand while standing guard. Realising he has to save Wilson's face, Perrin cuts his own hand and Simon, who is now convinced that his spouse is an adulteress, seeks to have the page walled up for his sins. However, Wilson intervenes on his behalf, only for Trimble to challenge Perrin to another duel. But, while Perrin proves less lenient second time around, his chivalry serves no purpose, as Branice dies and Simon exacts his revenge by having Perrin dragged by galloping steeds.

Once again suggesting the vulnerability of autocratic power, Borowyczk taints the tragedy with a satiric playfulness. In one of his last roles, the peerless Michel Simon is splendidly witless as the covetous nobleman who doubts the one person he should trust, while Wilson is suitably shiftless and Perrin dashingly naive. Branice proves as helplessly pure as the white dove, which shares her caged fate. However, nothing is ever as it outwardly seems in a Borowczyk picture, as everyone is a prisoner here, trapped by their flaws and fate. Meticulously designed by Jacques D'Ovidio, costumed by Piet Bolscher and photographed by Guy Durban and André Dubreuil, this is probably Borowczyk's masterpiece, with the soundtrack played on period instruments adding to its melancholic charm.

In many ways, Blanche is similar in look and tone to Pier Paolo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life (1971-74) and Borowczyk produced his own portmanteau picture in Immoral Tales (1974). Despite opening with a quote from La Rochefoucauld, this quartet is not drawn from a single source like the Canterbury Tales, the Decameron or the Arabian Nights. Instead, Borowczyk heads back through history from a sunny beach in the present day, where Fabrice Luchini coaxes 16 year-old cousin Lise Danvers into performing an act of fellatio in sync with the rolling tide. Following `La Marée', the scene switches to the fin-de-siècle for `Thérèse Philosophie', which sees country girl Charlotte Alexandra combine the teachings of the Bible and De Sade when she is locked in a room after being caught fondling the church organ pipes.

Closing on a tableau of satiated curiosity and lust, this cheeky vignette gives way to `Erzsébet Báthory', which transports us to 1610 and follows the Hungarian countess (Paloma Picasso) as she tours a village on horseback seeking suitable maidens to take back to her castle. Once there, she orders them to undress and indulge in some harmless petting before she reveals the real purpose for their presence and luxuriates in the bloody bath she is convinced will keep her young. And another historical character dominates `Lucrezia Borgia', as friar Hyeronimus Savonarola (Philippe Desboeuf) despairs of the daughter (Florence Bellamy) of Pope Alexander VI (Jacopo Berinizi) and the sister of Cesare Borgia (Lorenzo Berinizi), who is powerless to resist her incestuous desires.

Too witty and astute to be dismissed merely as softcore porn, this is beautifully designed by Borowczyk himself and photographed with a lushness that cannot quite conceal the sharp edges by Bernard Daillencourt, Guy Durban, Noël Véry and Michel Zolat. The performances are knowing, with Fabrice Luchini no doubt aware that his casting probably owed much to the fact that his second picture was Claire's Knee (1970), a tale of seaside fetishisation that formed part of Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales series. But it is also fascinating to see Pablo Picasso's daughter revelling in her red period and Borowczyk's new preoccupation with the sins of the past led him to revisit them in The Beast (1975).

One of the conditions of Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel) inhering her late father's fortune is that she has to marry French aristocrat Mathurin de l'Esperance (Pierre Benedetti) within six months. According to the terms of the bequest, the service has to be performed by Cardinal Joseph do Balo (Jean Martinelli), the brother of the crippled Duc Rammaendelo De Balo (Marcel Dalio), who is the uncle of Mathurin's impoverished father, Pierre

Guy Tréjan), who lives in a chateau in the country with his daughter, Clarisse (Pascale Rivault), who is having a vigorous fling with their black servant, Ifany (Hassane Fall). Pierre is aware that Mathurin was never baptised and persuades the local paedophile priest (Roland Armontel) to oversee a service that Pierre conducts himself in order to spare Mathurin the embarrassment of having his physical malformation exposed.

Forced to abandon their car because of a fallen tree in the road, Lucy and her aunt Virginia (Elisabeth Kaza) take a path through the woods and Lucy is amused to see two horses copulating outside the stables. That night, Lucy asks Rammaendelo about the rumours she has heard about Romilda de l'Esperance (Sirpa Lane), who is rumoured to have been assaulted by a creature in the forest some 200 years before. He shows her a book chronicling the family history and she begins to find drawings depicting bestial acts hidden in unexpected places around the house.

Rammaendelo is against the marriage, as he fears he will be asked to leave if Mathurin starts a family. But his hopes of persuading his brother not to officiate are dashed when Pierre threatens to make known the fact that Rammaendelo poisoned his wife unless he co-operates. At supper, Lucy is somewhat disturbed to notice Mathurin's awkward table manners. But she gets tipsy and retires to her room, where she dreams that she is Romilda running through the trees. However, she wakes with a start when she finds the lamb she has been chasing has been ripped to pieces.

While Lucy sleeps, Pierre catches Rammaendelo urging the cardinal to stay away and he slashes his throat with a razor and pulls the phone out of the wall. Back in Lucy's fantasy, she loses her clothing while fleeing through the forest and is powerless to defend herself as she hangs from a branch and the beast explores her with his mouth. Roused from her slumbers, Lucy feels compelled to check on Mathurin and satisfies herself that he is soundly asleep and cannot have been in her room. Returning to her bed, Lucy masturbates with a red rose and imagines the beast ravishing her.

Disturbed by the pleasurable sensations coursing through her, Lucy looks in on Mathurin again. She reassures herself that he has not been molesting her and returns to bed, where she quickly resumes her reverie. The beast is now masturbating and she assists so eagerly that the creature dies of exhaustion. Suddenly terrified, Lucy rushes to Mathurin's room and finds that he has also expired. Virginia comes running at the sound of her niece's screams and pulls back the bedclothes and removes the cast on Mathurin's arm to reveal that he has a clawed hand and a tail, as well as thick body fur. They leave immediately, but, as they drive away, Lucy cannot help imagining herself saying her farewells as she buries the beast.

Based on the Prosper Mérimée novel, Lokis, this variation on Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood started out as an episode in Immoral Tales and it's all-too-easy to see the joins, as Borowczyk sought to expand it to feature length. There's little point in pretending that this dissertation on man's animal instincts is a neglected masterpiece. Jacques D'Ovidio's production design and Bernard Daillencourt and Marcel Grignon's camerawork are admirable. But the plot is rickety and is virtually dispensed with altogether once Hummel begins fantasising, while the bilingual dialogue is cumbersome in the extreme. The performances are also poor, although the stalwart Marcel Dalio provides a mischievous link to the chateau in Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu (1939).

What really lets this erotic romp down, however, is the decision to show the beast in close-up and the poor quality of the make-up effects. Following the unflinching shots of the horses, the giant, spouting phallus looks ludicrous by comparison. But it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that Borowczyk had deliberately plumped for such an unconvincing fiend to make his Buñuelian assault on the Catholic Church and the French aristocracy seem even more fantastical. He certainly succeeded in shocking censors and audiences, although the 20-minute bestial set-piece played out to a driving Scarlatti harpsichord sonata invariably provoked as much jaw-dropped mirth as genuine outrage.

Sadly, The Beast earned Borowczyk a reputation for smut, which he went on to confirm with the soft-focus fumblings in Behind Convent Walls (1977), Immoral Women (1979), Emmanuelle V (1986) and Love Rites (1988). But, as he demonstrated with The Story of Sin (1976), he was still a fine film-maker, with a genius for picking up the symbolic details within the mise-en-scène and for illustrating human behaviour, as opposed to scrutinising it. Adapted from a novel by Stefan Zeromski, this was the sole live-action picture that Borowczyk completed in his homeland. Once again, the depth of characterisation may leave something to be desired and the storyline may be pocked with melodrama. But the performances are committed and the feel for both time and place is immaculate.

Some time towards the end of the 19th century, Grazyna Dlugolecka is warned in confession by Fr Zbigniew Zapasiewicz to resist the temptations of the flesh now that she is coming of age. Her parents, Karolina Lubienska and Zdzislaw Mrozewski, are not wealthy and take in Jerzy Zelnik as a lodger. Even though he is married, Dlugolecka falls hopelessly in love with him. But, even though he is estranged from his wife, the Church refuse him a divorce. Dlugolecka is disowned when the truth about the affair becomes known and she is left alone and pregnant when Zelnik is sent to Rome on business.

While he is away, Dlugolecka drowns her baby, as she lacks the means to raise it and fears that Zelnik will abandon her if he has a child to care for. However, she learns from Count Olgierd Lukaszewicz that he wounded Zelnik in a duel that resulted in his arrest. Desperate to visit him in prison, Dlugolecka makes her way to Italy, only to discover that her lover has been released and deported. Unable to find Dlugolecka, Zelnik deduces that she has started a relationship with Lukaszewicz and remarries.

Distraught, Dlugolecka enters into a conspiracy with con men Roman Wilhelmi and Marek Walczewski to murder Lukaszewicz. Having poisoned him during love-making, however, Dlugolecka is betrayed by her confederates and is forced to work in a brothel on her return to Poland. Determined to fleece Zelnik, Wilhelmi and Walczewski track her down and try to blackmail her. But, even though, Dlugolecka now has a kindly protector, who tries to shelter her, she is still besotted with Zelnik and is shot trying to warn him he is in danger.

A far cry from the winking sauciness of The Beast, this fallen woman saga may be short on originality and finesse. But it more than atones with its intensity and compassion. Dlugolecka succumbs to love rather than lust and suffers pluckily the kind of capricious contrivances that would not have been out of place in a 1940s Hollywood potboiler rather than a notorious novel that had twice been filmed before (by Antoni Bednarczyk in 1911 and Henryk Szaro in 1933), despite being banned by the Vatican. Lukaszewicz makes a splendid adversary, but Zelnik doesn't quite cut it as love's young dream and he is scarcely missed during his lengthy absences.

The latter title has been excluded from the Camera Obscura selection, but it is available on DVD. Let's hope that Arrow gather it and some of the other less celebrated titles from Borowczyk's later career into a second collection, as, while he may not quite be worthy of some of the comparisons with Robert Bresson and Luis Buñuel that have been made since his death at the age of 82 in 2006, he is still a film-maker whose true worth has yet to be fully appreciated.