The Blue Villa (1995)

AKA Un bruit qui rend fou (The Noise That Drives One Mad)

One of the most interesting things regarding both the literary and cinematic careers of Alain Robbe-Grillet is the timeline of said careers. Prior to becoming the face of the nouvelle roman or “new novel” movement, Robbe-Grillet already had a number of prior occupations behind him, perhaps most fascinatingly working as an agronomist specializing in the diseases of tropical fruit trees of all things. Its important to note that Robbe-Grillet’s first novel The Erasers wasn’t published until Robbe-Grillet was 31 and he was 41 by the time he directed his first film L’Immortelle (1963). From 1963 to 2006, Robbe-Grillet directed only 9 features and for the most part his time behind the camera could be labeled sporadic given the extended gaps in-between films, with his most productive time as a director being the 60’s to the early 70’s. Following Eden and After (1970), Robbe-Grillet took a four year absence from film before returning with Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974) and the next year with Playing With Fire (1975) before taking another lengthy sabbatical. After the publication of 4 novels over the span of 8 years, Robbe-Grillet retuned to film with La belle captive (1983) before taking his longest cinematic vacation yet, returning to the screen 12 years later in 1995 with The Blue Villa, one of his most elusive films and one that perfectly captures Robbe-Grillet transporting his nouvelle vague writing style to film.

A mysterious sailor known only as Frank (Fred Ward) drops anchor on a small Mediterranean island. According to local legend, Frank is the spirit of a murderer who was killed as sea during a storm while fleeing the island after killing his fiancée and has returned to the scene of his crime on its anniversary. Frank’s supposed victim was Santa, the step-daughter of Edouard Nordmann, a resident of the island who was known to hate his step-daughter. When the island’s chief police inspector learns of Frank’s “return”, he re-opens the case and informs Nordmann, although unbeknownst to Nordmann, Santa is very much alive, held up in a local brothel known as The Blue Villa. With talk and sightings of Frank everywhere, Nordmann becomes increasingly paranoid as he finds himself relentlessly perused by vengeful phantoms, phantoms that may or may not be of his own creation.

Although refereeing to a Robbe-Grillet film as open to interpretation is beyond redundant, The Blue Villa is nonetheless an intricate puzzle, one who’s pieces don’t quite fit where they should and whose resolution manages to be even more mystifying then the unraveling of clues throughout the film. Despite the films cryptically beautiful final image making little sense from a logical standpoint, it matters very little as the film is a classic case of journey rather than destination and ultimately makes perfect sense to those who view the film with the same mindset Robbe-Grillet and co-director Dimitri de Clercq crafted the film with. This is a film made up of questions that lead to more questions. Chief among them being the issue of whether or not Frank is actually a ghost. The same could be asked of Santa, who despite appearing to be alive and well in the titular bordello could also be seen as a sort of specter once Nordmann’s paranoia begins increasing. This leads to yet more questions, like was there ever a murder in the first place and just what does the mysterious Madame of the Blue Villa have to do with anything? In typical Robbe-Grillet fashion, the questions are posed in a playful manner and the film could be compared to Trans-Europ-Express (1967) and Playing With Fire in that its suggested that everything is being made up on the spot, with several characters breaking the fourth wall and addressing the camera, each adding their own little details to the story.

Along with its plotline, one of the most mysterious aspects regarding The Blue Villa is its release history with the film essentially disappearing after its showing at the Berlin International Film Festival and a broadcast on European television which was thankfully recorded and seems to be the source of most available copies of the film. The film was missing from the BFI’s six film Robbe-Grillet box set featuring L’Immortelle, Trans-Europ-Express, The Man Who Lies (1968), Eden and After along with its alternate edit N. Takes the Dice and Successive Slidings of Pleasure as well as Kino/Redemption’s line of Robbe-Grillet remasters featuring the same films. Along with Playing With Fire, The Blue Villa is the only other Robbe-Grillet film that’s yet to see an official, English friendly release. Following The Blue Villa, Robbe-Grillet would take his longest sabbatical from film yet, returning 11 years later with what would become his final film Gradiva (2006). In-between The Blue Villa and Gradiva however, Robbe-Grillet made another comeback of sorts in 2001 with the publication of Repetition, his fist novel since 1981’s Djinn. 2001 also saw the publication of Le voyageur, essais et entretiens, a collection of essays. Although The Blue Villa may prove somewhat tricky for some to track down, Robbe-Grillet enthusiasts who’ve yet to see will find plenty to love as the film’s multifaceted, hall of mirrors narrative is quintessential Robbe-Grillet in construction and execution.

Playing With Fire (1975)

An endless source of fascination relating to cinema is how changes in the cultural zeitgeist over the years have determined how certain films and filmmakers are looked upon. This is especially true as it relates to terms such as “exploitation”, “arthouse”, “grindhouse”, “cult film” and so on and so fourth, with films that in decades past would have been considered somewhat mainstream and commercial are now seen as niche. Case in point, the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet. While Robbe-Grillet’s films were always going to be somewhat of an acquired taste, Robbe-Grillet, along with the likes of Jess Franco, Walerian Borowczyk, Jean Rollin, José Ramón Larraz and José Bénazéraf nonetheless belonged to an era where films that fall under the umbrella term “Euro cult” could not just turn a decent profit but also shatter the lines between many of the aforementioned terms, alienating a fraction of audiences looking for one thing or another. Divisive as they may be, Robbe-Grillet’s films sold tickets, not to mention earned their share of notoriety, namely the scandalous S&M of Trans-Europ-Express (1967) and the condemnation of Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974) by the Vatican. The mid-70’s proved to be one of Robbe-Grillet’s most commercially viable periods and he would follow up Successive Slidings of Pleasure with Playing With Fire, another film with the potential to reach a wide audience as well as divide a significant portion of said audience.

Wealthy banker Georges de Saxe receives a letter informing him that his daughter Carolina (Anicée Alvina) has been kidnapped along with instructions to deliver a large payment in exchange for Carolina's safe return. The problem is Carolina hasn’t been kidnapped, she’s safe at home. Fearing that the letter might be a trial run for an actual kidnapping, Georges demands Carolina go into hiding just as a precautionary measure. With the help of Franz (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a detective of sorts, Carolina is placed in a brothel where wealthy clients indulge in sadomasochistic fantasies while Georges, despite knowing full-well that Carolina is safe, agrees to go forward with delivering the ransom to a shady network of human traffickers, making an already strange scenario all the more bizarre.

Fusing the narrative deconstruction techniques of Trans-Europ-Express with the sadosurrealistic fantasy worlds of Eden and After (1970) and Successive Slidings of Pleasure, Playing with Fire (Le jeu avec le feu), as the title suggests, finds Robbe-Grillet at his most playful, with a good portion of the film feeling like Robbe-Grillet is playing a deliberate joke on both his characters and the audience. While not as explicit as Trans-Europ-Express in terms of having the film play out on the spot with characters writing out the film as it progresses, that idea is certainly hinted at throughout Playing With Fire, with multiple instances of characters breaking the fourth wall and addressing the camera as well as numerous references to a “script”. At one point Robbe-Grillet even pokes a little fun at himself by having Trintignant quip “I didn’t understand the script all, but that’s that.” Its an understandable mindset as very little makes sense in Robbe-Grillet’s perverse playground, be it a kidnapping that never happened or perhaps may happen in the future, characters shifting allegiances or a house of pleasure where the waking and dream world collide, yet the strength of the film lies in its playfulness, where its fun to both try and put the pieces of the puzzle together while simultaneously getting lost in the absurdity of it all. Of course its difficult to not get lost in the dream world Robbe-Grillet creates on the inside of Carolina’s safe house, who’s various rooms of pleasure feature some of Robbe-Grillet’s most striking sadoerotic tableaux.

Playing Wire Fire was the second Robbe-Grillet film to feature Anicée Alvina following Alvina’s now iconic starring role in Successive Slidings of Pleasure. Robbe-Grillet always had nothing but praise for Alvina, stating how well she took direction, specifically singling out the scene in Successive Slidings of Pleasure where Alvina recreates a Yves Klein Anthropométries, a scene which for timing reasons had to be done in one single take which was achieved with ease thanks to Alvina. Robbe-Grillet even attributed the success of Successive Slidings of Pleasure to her. A fascinating character herself, Robbe-Grillet remarked that Alvina would only read comic books and humorously recalled an instance where her mother hoped that the film wouldn’t offend her modesty, or what little she had. Alvina also had a career as a singer and for a time fronted the quirky French New Wave/post-punk band Ici Paris. Alvina sadly died in 2006 of lung cancer, however her daughter Azadée now fronts Ici Paris. While the role of Carolina is considerably less mysterious than that of Alvina’s unnamed sorceress in Successive Slidings of Pleasure, Alvina still brings a doe-eyed innocence to Carolina which goes well with Alvina’s inhibited mischievousness. In terms of writing as well as visually speaking, Playing With Fire is classic Robbe-Grillet and a must see and as inaccessible at it may seem from a distance, wouldn’t be a bad place to start for the uninitiated.