La Fiancée des ténèbres (1945) - film review

The composer Roland Samblaca returns to his home town Carcassonne in the South of France with his family.  Whilst visiting an ancient castle, he meets and is enchanted by a young woman, Sylvie, who lives in the castle with her adoptive guardian, Monsieur Toulzac.  A retired schoolmaster, Toulzac now occupies his time with his research into the ancient cult of a Christian sect of the Middle Ages who glorified death over life.  Syvlie believes that she is cursed, having seen her first two lovers die in tragic circumstances.  When Toulzac discovers a secret cathedral beneath the castle, Syvlie is compelled to go there.  Roland follows, oblivious to the danger that awaits...

With its unsettling mix of neo-realistic photography and fairy-tale like settings, La Fiancée des ténèbres is an impressive example of the fantasy genre in French cinema of the 1940s.   Although little known, it is an extraordinary work of cinema, which employs techniques that make it feel and appear quite different to the majority of films from this period.

The story is based on the infamous cult of the Cathars, an extremely ascetic Christians, once active in Southern France.  They saw the material world as evil and transitory, a kind of purgatory for the human soul, and preached the holiness of death.  The central figure in the film, Sylvie, was based on a character in the 19th century who attempted to revive the Cathar cult.

As with most fantasy films, the plot makes very little sense, but that hardly matters.  Thanks largely to some captivating performances and ground-breaking cinematography, the film really does draw its audience into the dream world it has created,  so that what we experience is both frightening and mesmerising.

If it had been made as a conventional film drama, La Fiancée des ténèbres would probably be an unsatisfying work.  What makes it so compelling and so utterly spine-chillingly disturbing is the way in which the film is shot and assembled.  In some respects, it resembles a curious melange of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la bête and the cult 1976 horror film The Omen.

© James Travers 2001

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