Al otro lado del espejo (1973)

Filmmaking is an incredibly laborious, time sensitive process and because of how consuming making a movie is, it's always admirable when a director is able to not only be prolific, but retain a good amount of consistency throughout a body of work as well as an authorial voice, as opposed to seeming like a hired hand. Takashi Miike is especially adept at this but no other director embodied this type of working more than Jess Franco. With over 200 films to his credit, Franco didn't always hit his target and being his biggest critic he himself would readily admit to that. The majority of the time however he did, and what's especially incredible is that some of Franco's very best work was done during some of his most exhaustively prolific periods. 1973 was crucial year for Franco which saw Franco complete 12 feature films but more important than the number was the fact that several of the films from that year represent Franco at his most inspired with films like Plaisir à trois, Countess Perverse, Sinner: The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac and of course, Female Vampire, perhaps Franco's most iconic film, all being crucial entries in his filmography. Standing out even among that crowd is Al otro lado del espejo, a film that in Franco's original Spanish cut, is a strong contender for the title of Franco's best and most heartfelt film.

Before she is set to wed her fiance Arturo, Ana (Emma Cohen) seeks permission from her father (Howard Vernon) whom she has been devoted to her entire life. He gives his approval, only to hang himself soon after. Blaming herself, Ana calls off the engagement and falls into a deep depression, eventually moving to the city to get away from it all. A gifted pianist, Ana finds work playing at a jazz club where she catches the eye of bandmate Bill. While playing, Ana slips into a trance of sorts, seeing the reflection of her father's hanging corpse in a mirror, suddingly finding herself in a scenario walking with Bill, ultimately stabbing him to death, only later to discover that Bill was in fact murdered in real life. It's a situation Ana soon finds herself in whenever she becomes intimate with a man, the ghostly image of her dead father drawing her back to the family home.

In many ways, Al otro lado del espejo (The Other Side of the Mirror) is a kind of spiritual companion to Franco's Venus in Furs (1969) in that both could be described as “jazz films”. Jazz films not within the context of soundtrack, though music is crucial in both films, but jazz films in the sense that both follow a path a trumpet or saxophone solo might take as opposed to the direction taken by conventional narrative. Franco had spoken of envisioning Venus in Furs as taking place within the transcendental headspace of a jazz musician performing a solo and a good portion of The Other Side of the Mirror takes place in that headspace as well. Much like Venus in Furs, and a good portion of Franco's body of work, the hallucinatory, parallel realm Ana's mind enters in The Other Side of the Mirror is also smothered by heavy melancholia, the weight brilliantly carried by Emma Cohen in what quite frankly is the greatest performance in Franco's entire oeuvre. Like Montserrat Prous' Linda in Sinner, Cohen's Ana is a tragic beauty, utterly sympathetic yet also knowingly lethal, though one masterful, final twist from Franco makes Ana's character path hurt just a bit more. Jazz, as stated, obviously plays an essential role in the film, the films theme, the gorgeous “Madeira Love”, being played a variety of ways throughout the film, giving different inflections depending on the mood of the scene, including an extended jazz jam which Franco wisely presents in it's entirety.

Being a Franco film, of course different versions were eventually released, though this particular film is one of the more interesting cases of alternate version syndrome that affects so many of Franco's films. Rather than have some anonymous editor carelessly splice in spicier sex scenes, Franco himself crafted an entirely new story, calling it “Le miroir obscène” or The Obscene Mirror, with newly shot  footage featuring Lina Romay and a re-arranged story, re-naming Ana “Annette” and replacing the suicide of the father with a sister, Marie (Romay). Watching both versions back-to-back is fascinating and Le miroir obscène is a testament to Franco's ingenuity when it comes to tweaking certain story elements to get something new out of familiar material. As Stephen Thrower mentions in his essential tome Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco Volume 1, The Obscene Mirror curiously features scenes cut from the original Spanish version and a third version was released to Italian adult theaters featuring hardcore inserts. The original Spanish cut is, unsurprisingly, the best, Franco even received some rare critical praise in Spain upon its initial release. Emma Cohen was even awarded “Best Actress” from the Spanish Film Critics Circle for her extraordinary work. An extraordinary performance in an extraordinary film, Al otro lado del espejo is an absolutely essential Franco title and one of the standouts of 1973, one of the strongest years for genre film.

Tenemos 18 años (1959)

It's an interesting occurrence whenever a filmmaker becomes synonymous with a certain film or style after already leaving behind them a sizable body of work. For instance when Takashi Miike became a name to know among western film fans in the late 90's following Audition (1999), Miike was already a veteran with 30 films to his credit. Umberto Lenzi may be notorious for the likes of Nightmare City (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981), but the man was genre chameleon, capable of quality work in genres ranging from spaghetti western to historical adventure to giallo and of course, poliziotteschi. In the case of Jess Franco, there were several things Franco became known for, to both fans and critics, but by and large, if there was a specific type of film Franco would be most associated with, it would be erotic horror, with Franco really shifting into gear with The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962). Orlof is indeed a crucial Franco title, but Franco's path to Orlof offers a glimpse of the prolific and diverse path Franco traversed  throughout his entire career. Prior to unleashing the mad doctor, Franco had already handled a musical, Queen of the Tabarin Club (1960) and a spy comedy, Labios rojos (1960), who's characters Franco would return to multiple times, but it all began with Tenemos 18 años, Franco's feature debut which showcased his ability to balance a variety of genres.

Growing bored with their home and school life and wanting a change of scenery, 18 year old cousins Maria (Isana Medel) and Pili hit the road in a beat up old car purchased from Mariano, their scheming, constantly broke cousin. Jumping forward in time, Franco shows the girls writing their memories of the trip, though they have a tendency to embellish the events, with the truth of one particular memory affecting their outlook on the future.

So it begins. For anyone with a handful of Franco titles that came from the late 60's onwards under their belt, watching Tenemos 18 años (We are 18 Years Old) can be a rather fascinating experience as the film does give a glimpse of what Franco has in store for future films, but by the same token there are several things about the film that might surprise longtime Franco viewers coming to the film for the first time. For the most part, the film is a comedy with much of the humor stemming from the bizarre situations the girls find themselves in on the road. The style of humor is very Spanish, absurd and with the girls stretching the truth during their memories, it often tips over into the surreal realm. A different kind of surrealism that Franco would become known for, but already his knack for going off on tangents makes itself known. Thanks to the rapport between the girls and their bubbly attitudes, Isana Medel being especially likable, Franco hits his comedic targets most of the time and while some of the tonal shifts might seem abrupt, when viewed as a whole, they actually enhance the film. The films centerpiece and perhaps the most jarring mood swing is an extended segue into horror where the girls find themselves having dinner in the castle of an ominous stranger. Just as Franco's surreal tendencies seem to already be in place, this lone episode proves Franco's skill for horror was there from the beginning.

It seems like a cruel destiny of sorts, but even with this, his very first feature, Franco would encounter some of the problems he would face an innumerable amount of times with future films. The first hurdle the film faced was actually getting released, sitting in distribution limbo for two years before an extremely limited release and later hitting Spanish VHS sometime in the 80's. The second and more perplexing problem Franco ran into regarding the film was the Spanish censor board cutting 10 minutes of the film during some fairly crucial moments that added weight to the films more dramatic side and the VHS release featured the shorter cut as well. It's interesting to note that around this time, difficult as it is to believe all things considered, Franco actually had a friend on the censor board, José Luis Dibildos, though he was ultimately of little help in saving the film from the cuts. Franco would later admit that before he left Spain to work aboard a few years down the line, he actually went to the chief censor and gave him a piece of his mind. Bi-polar as the film might seem in tone, Tenemos 18 años is a remarkably assured film for a debut feature and given that it marked the arrival of one of the most individualistic and prolific directors in the field, should be considered an important film.