HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 56
3rd of 4 films from your birth year

If you are alarmed, disgusted, frightened or otherwise upset at the sight of genitals, my advice is to walk on. You need to steer clear of The Beast. On the other hand, if bukkake's your thing, then pull up a chair! (Wow, imagine that as a pick-up line)

Walerian Borowczyk was a very naughty boy. The sexual imagery that this film thrusts in your face is so graphic, I thought I was going to get a flying pube in the eye. As it progressed through its wildly raunchy duration, I couldn't help but call to mind some of the so-called "controversial" movies that have excited conservative groups in the years since, things like Basic Instinct and so on. All of them are rather tame in comparison to this film, that's for sure (not that I want to put Paul Verhoeven down because he's one of my favourite cinematic naughty boys too).

I am often left puzzled by what exactly the message was in any given Borowczyk film (if any), and this one is no different. I'm very tempted to think that all he wants to do is be provocative. That should be obnoxious (and no doubt there are many who find him so, certainly all those censorship boards who banned his films in the past) but with Borowczyk somehow it isn't. His transgressive impulse is positively infectious.

Is it just titillation or is there a deeper point (... never mind)? Maybe there's something in here about sex with regard to power relations between the genders, but that doesn't ring out to me. The rapacious pursuit of wealth is certainly a theme, and it seems that animal lusts lay low all such schemes - but rather than a cautionary tale, it seems celebratory. It's only the most monstrous people who fall foul.

Maybe I'm a bit dim. Or maybe this is nothing more than a splatter painting of sex and death and chaos, and you're supposed to pick up the pieces to make up your own meaning in Dadaist fashion. Or maybe I was just a little bit distracted by all the oozing, pulsating organs getting paraded in front of me (and I'm not talking about the kind you find in Lucio Fulci movies).

Whatever else, at least Borowczyk's films are always interesting. The absolutely fearless subversiveness is like a tonic to the soul as far as I'm concerned. Maybe if more people were able to get a kick out of films like The Beast, the world would be a better place? Certainly a naughtier one, and I for one would approve of that (ooh err!)