Pleasure Party
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B-
An
overbearing husband becomes his own undoing in Claude Chabrol’s Pleasure Party (aka Une Partie de
Plaisir, 1974), the tale of Paul (Paul Gegauff, who wrote the screenplay) and
his wife Esther (ex-wife Danielle Gegauff).
She is younger and he tells her he loves her, but it is apparent as time
goes on that he wants someone to control and manipulate, not to love or treat
as an equal.
As their
daughter gets older, he seems to want two daughters and no wife, for both of
them to stay infantile so he can stay potent.
Deep down, he is in denial of being a loser who will not change, so much
so that he has become viciously desperate.
To show his emptiness, he “allows” (read encourages) her to sleep with
another man, part of which so he can justify sleeping around on her. However, it is his own test to “prove” top
himself that he controls her no matter where she goes and how she acts.
Of
course, this backfires. Habib is a nice
guy, but his ethnicity complicates the matter, being a non-white with “the
woman” of the supposedly potent white male Paul, who wants to play God. Failure of this fragile control is
disintegration in progress and is something Paul will become more desperate and
violent to keep a grasping control of.
The death throes featured in this conclusion are very telling.
The 1.85
X 1 image is missing a sliver of information on each side, is soft, but also is
from a decent print. It is also from a
later analog master, but the shooting and the colors (no matter how plugged up)
are consistent. Too bad this was not a
newer, anamorphically enhanced transfer from the same print, because
cinematographer Jean Rabier’s work is impressive and forwards the narrative
well. The Dolby Digital 2.0 offers the
soundtrack in French and Spanish, as well as an audio commentary with two
well-read Chabrol experts, which makes for an interesting and interpretive
commentary that usually holds its own very well. You also get the original theatrical trailer,
a stills gallery (15 in all), extensive biography text on Chabrol and Paul
Gegauff), extensive film notes text, and a nearly 48-minutres-long audio
interview with Chabrol himself that adds up to a valuable set.
The
sexual politics and issues have not changed much in the 30 years since this
film first hit theaters, though some of the symbolisms have changed since women
have become more empowered (though not enough, considering the consistent abuse
rate against them). This is particularly
valid in media and cinema, so some of those points have dated. It has been decades since I first saw Pleasure Party, but many scenes have
still retained their shock value and cruelty in too many relationships has not
softened, no matter how PC is it to deny it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
