Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageLe Sang des Bêtes (1949)
Director: Georges Franju
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Despite the grim content, this description of three abbatoirs (horses, cattle, sheep) is no vegetarian tract. What most fascinates Franju is the inflicting of violent death as a matter of banal 9-to-5 routine. We soon pick up the process: the pickaxe through the skull, the throatcutting, the steaming blood (it's winter) spilling across the stone floor, the hacking and dismembering. We become accustomed to the echoing sounds: the banging and clattering, someone off-camera singing 'La Mer'. The slaughterhouses are placed in geographical context, with Kosma's lilting waltz theme accompanying an evocation of the outskirts of post-war Paris: canals, junk markets, scrubby wasteland. It's a gift of a subject for a surrealist like Franju: an everyday nightmare, at once atrocious and outlandishly beautiful.Author: BBa
User reviews of this film
-
- Technoguy said...
-
Posted on Jun 04 2008 00:03
Beauty can be in ugliness,violence being the spur.The abattoir is secondary to the contextualisation of post-war Paris,markets,vacant lots,canals,kids playing.There
is a dislocation to the realism that the surrealist Franju
uncovered in his first film(documentary).The concentration is not on the slaughter,although this is efficient and the rivers of blood,but in black and white
it's just bearable when it wouldn't have been in colour. - Report as inappropriate
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now