Belladonna of Sadness (film)
what can I say about this one? I'll get the prickly bit out of the way and well it's a slight spoiler, so all of that will be blurry; there is a bit of a feminist message right at the end, the last 30 seconds or so, but maybe that's just aged badly as these days saying whether you're an egalitarian (which I am) or a feminist invites trouble over who is actually talking about equality, but that's just looking too much into a very small part of the film
anyway. I've tried finding the OST on youtube as of writing, some of the downbeat tracks are quite haunting, and really set the scene for much of the conflict the main characters face. the film starts with the most joyful scene and pretty much the only upbeat track in the OST, as the leads often followed throughout the film, Jean and Jeanne, get married, straight after that though, the landlord has some, unreasonable proposal. some of the imagery that follows shows that this is a very mature title, throw some metaphors into that imagery and if I had any skill in art, some of it would certainly look like certain parts of my scrap book. before continuing on the plot, I'll just say, I heard the studio making the film were going bankrupt, and some images and well, most of the film being mainly still images shows that, some poorer quality stills show that they just had to get something to the end of production, but some of the main cast shows the care they had for the project, particularly the Devil and Jeanne. more on the plot without too much spoilers, it's a very dark film, jeanne suffers a lot, her husband jean suffers quite a bit too, but jeanne is the main focus of the plot. she gives the town so many chances, she seems very forgiving considering what side she takes in the plot, apart from one very frightening and dark point in the plot. about half way through it goes through a lot of imagery that I can only explain by saying "it was the 70's" it does come up a few times like that from that point on but it doesn't intrude on scenes that move the plot forward.
I do think suffering is quite a universal thing, I would say that the film is trying to write jeanne like her downfalls are specific to women, like the blurry text earlier I don't really like that idea, but decades ago there was a fear of women getting the sort of power jeanne gets, and in the 70's women, all people were a little more outspoken about what women could do, since then things have changed, it's better not to think of the writers putting forward something specific like that, but as for relating to jeanne's suffering, it's a bit extreme, I can't relate to someone who has so many downfalls so hard, but then again, some of the lines with the devil ring with me. despite what I've said about how jeanne's suffering seems to be written, I am thinking maybe that jeanne is written for women to relate to and the devil for men to relate to.
the only other thing I will say is about the ending - not the very ending. I thought it would end a little more theatrical than that, but I guess that's why I've not been a writer
outstanding film! just keep it away from the chilluns