Venus In Furs 1969 (2nd review)

Writing reviews this year has opened up my appreciation of cinema and I've learned a lot. Much of that credit belongs to Jess Franco, the obscure Spanish surrealist/grindhouse director I covered for the first half of 2017. Studying his work properly introduced me to tons of concepts & artistic grammar that I was only fuzzy about. Postmodernism, Dada, Existentialism. These themes perfectly reflect the dark crises Earth is handling now. I'm a totally different viewer after this harsh year and my outlook has widened tremendously.

I can admit I'm now embarrassed by one of my early reviews. Rewatching "Venus in Furs" last night, the film was a richer, more clear experience and it deserves a new review. But I will not erase my initial, less informed opinion. We should all give things an educated perspective.

https://hollyweedbabylon.blogspot.com/2017/01/venus-in-furs.html

Now Venus is a case like Blade Runner or Night of the Demons where a young ambitious artist made a deeply existential work of art and producers interfered to make it more commercial, thus losing a lot of the intended power. Funny how all 3 of these films revolve around the concept of perception, an essential component of cinema but maybe the least understood or examined.

I wrote off Venus as a clunky, sexy supernatural slasher like Franco's later work because thats what it is on the surface. Even on first viewing I could tell the film was heavily inspired by Vertigo, Carnival of Souls & Dr. Caligari, as its a dream narrative with dream logic and heavy political symbolism. Franco's film is a uniquely Spanish work examining themes of chauvinism/feminism, racism/colorism, sadism, schizophrenia, memory and probably LSD. The sex & supernatural is only a hook for audiences, but the producers re-edited the narrative to highlight these elements at the expense of any meaning. The film can seem convoluted if you aren't keenly aware of the lyrical storytelling that is mostly intact.

One of my favorite writers of the film blog era, Jeremy Richey of "Moon in the Gutter", detailed a connection between Franco's Venus and Lynch's Lost Highway. I originally thought he was off-base but now the similarities are glaring. The way Franco uses surreal photographic techniques and jazz scoring to highlight the dreaminess and artificiality of certain plot points. Franco gives clues and absurdist touches the way Lynch would after him. There's also the shared sensibility in ghostly, unreal femme fatales, unholy affluent boules and a confused, jazz playing spectator to all of the violent insanity who is oblivious to his role in everything. Franco & Lynch both imply that the world's depravity is at the heart of our sick culture, not a byproduct or separate fringe entity. You have to seriously ask if David Lynch, a monolithic American artist of our times, is a fan of this totally ignored cult director.

Its a hard argument for those uninitiated to Franco because Lynch is so quiet about his influences, unlike Franco in his day. Also Lynch fans are a bit dogmatic in praising Lynch's originality and genius. How can that great unique savant be compared to an inconsistent director of lesbian vampire pornos? As I've tried to argue in the past, Franco was a true auteur and genius and I'm sure his infamy is well-known to enormous film fans WITHIN the directing field. Jess Franco's films predicted so much because they were so structuralist and eventually post-structuralist. By "Venus", every shot is a reversal of the expected. Its a totally fresh experience despite its debts to other films. Because Franco, a super movie buff, was combining all of the radical ideas of his contemporaries (Godard, Antonioni, Bunuel, Welles, Fellini) and boiling them down to a level Spanish & American teenagers could even understand. Following these postmodern directors, it could be argued Franco was the original major post-postmodern & remodernist director like De Palma, Tarantino, Rodriguez and so many later.

I see now how seminal this film is to Franco's oeuvre, even if it wasn't the career gateway he wanted. It really summarizes his aesthetic well and explains the frustrated vision of his later, cheaper work. Many times he tried to execute the misunderstood mysticism of Venus in different terms. Some more mature (Other Side of the Mirror), some more juvenile (Virgin Among the Living Dead). I think Venus is more successful and watchable. But maybe Franco's best and most original take on this type of film poetry was "Succubus". But Venus is right next to it as Franco's attempt at a Roger Corman-esque drive-in mindblower. And to be honest, its a perfect hybrid of Corman's LSD and Gothic horror films, but better than both.