Rhapsodies

So for this weeks selection I went for French Fantastic Mysteries. Movies that questioned reality as we know it and left us scratching our heads.

Eugene Francois Vidocq was one of the first and great pioneers of forensic science inspiring such mystery writers as Edfar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle. In the film Vidocq his life is glamorized to epic proportion as he faces his greatest challenge yet.

Played with typical gusto by Gerard Depardieu. Vidocq fights a mysterious individual know only as the Alchemist who traps the souls of his victims in the mirror he wears as a mask.

I really liked this film. While hardly a masterpiece the look of this film was amazing. With wonderfully theatrical sets shot through sepia filters with multiple closeups and the occasional fish eye lens this was remarkably surreal  capturing a romanticized France at the brink of revolution.

Mystery, Monsters and Martial Arts what more can you ask for in a film? Brotherhood gives us all of these things nicely rapped up in wonderful period costumes.

The Beast of Gévaudan was an alleged creature that was apparently responsible for the death of over a hundred people in southern france between 1764 and 1767 whatever it was it was never identified; Brotherhood of the Wolf tells a romanticized tale of what it might have been.

Naturalist Grégoire de Fronsac and his Indian companion Manji, are sent to hunt the Beast. On the way they find Gypsies, corrupt aristocrats and ancient conspiracies and kick a whole lot of ass.

This is a fun movie beautiful in it’s vision of 18^th century france, the fighting choreography is amazing making it the only savate martial arts film I know and when we finally encounter the beast it is beautifully constructed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.