Blanche

Description: Set in 13th century France, this dark Arthurian tragedy centres on Blanche, the beautiful young wife of an ageing baron, who falls prey to the lusts of three men: her stepson, the king, and his page. Blanche is identified with a caged white dove; around her frightened flutterings her would-be lovers come to grief, one of them literally imprisoned in her bricked-up boudoir. Borowczyk’s initial interest in recreating the period and depicting courtly intrigue is gradually replaced by his characteristic cold, flat formalism - instead of fleshing out his main character (glimpsed stepping out of the bath at the start of the film) Borowczyk turns Blanche into an automaton. Yet despite its almost inhuman, pitiless cruelty, the film achieves a kind of tragic catharsis. Also available on 16mm.