La Chair de l’orchidée (1975) - film review

A young woman, Claire, escapes from a lunatic asylum and falls under the protection of Louis Delage, a loner who rears horses for a living.  When the man whom Louis has been sheltering is killed, both Claire and Louis become targets for a pair of unknown assassins.  In the adventure that follows, Claire discovers why she was locked away in an asylum – her aunt wanted to prevent her from inheriting her father’s fortune.  When the two killers make the same discovery, they kidnap Claire in order to extort a ransom, whilst continuing their pursuit for Louis.  The outcome is far from pleasant…

Acclaimed cineaste Patrice Chéreau made his directorial debut with this extraordinarily original adaptation of a James Hadley Chase thriller novel.   Chéreau appears to have little interest in the plot – which is something of a convoluted muddle – and instead uses the characters and their predicament to explore some themes of far greater interest, themes which would recur time and again in his subsequent films.  Fundamentally, this is a film about loneliness, about the fear and insecurity that enforced solitude brings, particularly in periods of crisis.  Loneliness is a major theme in Chéreau’s work, and few other directors have succeeded in conveying the devastating existentialist torment which this state can inflict on the human soul.

The bleakness of the film’s subject matter – which includes some pretty horrific scenes of mutilation and self-degradation  – is emphasised and indeed rendered almost unbearable by its sombre, often chilling, cinematography.  From the opening title sequence, we find ourselves transported into a twilight nightmare world of the imagination, a place where our familiar certainties and the sunnier sides of human existence are abolished, and this gruelling sense of the unreal is sustained right up until the closing credits.    The spell is broken – partially – in the film’s second half when Claire’s aunt and her spooky entourage make their appearance, a little too comically.  The focus drifts away from Claire and Louis, the film’s principal characters, to minor characters about which we, frankly, don’t give a damn.  At a few points, it is not clear whether this is intended as a grim psychological drama, a fantasy thriller or a very black comedy – yet, in a way, this melange of ill-defined genres contributes to the film’s appeal.

It goes without saying that Charlotte Rampling is impeccable in the role of Claire, bringing the requisite sense of mystery and vulnerability to her character.  Rampling is excellent in this kind of ambiguous part – sympathetic yet definitely disturbing.  She works well alongside her co-star Bruno Cremer, who is equally effective at creating solitary characters with a flawed heroic quality.  Rampling and Cremer would be reunited twenty-five years later in François Ozon’s Sous le sable (2000), an equally dark and unsettling film, which could almost pass as a sequel to La Chair de l’orchidée.

© James Travers 2003

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