Walerian Borowczyk is probably best known for his 1975 film The Beast (or maybe 1987’s Emmanuelle V, his contribution to the long-running softcore film series – although he claims to have directed only the short film-within-a-film sequence), a heady mix of Bunuelian satire and explicit, bestial sex, made possible through the relaxation of film censorship laws in France in the 1970s. For those looking for something along the line of Borowczyk’s most notorious feature, this release of his stunning debut, Goto, l’île d’amour (1968), will likely disappoint: lewd and fleshly it is definitely not. Indeed, Borowczyk’s cool tale of confinement and manipulation sometimes seems more of a piece with his earlier animations, replaying in narrative form the fantasies of objects gone crazy seen in shorts like Dom (1958) or Renaissance (1963).

Shot by Guy Durban in an austere, flattened style (unwanted shadows were eliminated by the use of large light-boxes), Goto relates the shifting relationships between Grozo, a craftsman and kennel keeper, Glossia, a beautiful woman dreaming of escape from an unhappy marriage, and her husband King Goto III – the ruler of the island on which they all live. Desire, jealousy and revenge are the key narrative motors. The island itself, existing in complete isolation since an earthquake in the previous century, is a place of desolate landscapes and crumbling architecture. Flies infest the residences: Grozo’s job is to catch these pests using his own handcrafted traps. The fly traps – made with human hair – along with the recurrent image of dogs in their cages, are representations of the islanders’ plight, almost comic in their over-obvious symbolism. Horses also figure prominently, appearing in the strange, disorientating opening credits (a single, static shot of a paddock wall) and in several sequences involving Glossia and her affair with her riding instructor. Borowczyk would develop this association of horses with erotic adventure further in The Beast, whose extraordinary opening sequence features a mating sequence that would make even the most seasoned wildlife documentary enthusiast blush.

The extras for this release (the first outing for the film on UK DVD) by Nouveaux Pictures on 1 June include a detailed, well-informed commentary by the writer and filmmaker Daniel Bird and ‘The Ghost of Goto’, a fascinating film by Bird featuring a conversation between three of Borowczyk’s collaborators, Dominique Duvergé (co-scenarist), Noël Véry (camera operator) and André Heinrich (assistant director). The discussion ranges from the technical – apparently Borowczyk obsessed over the ‘deforming’ potential of all wide-angle lenses, leading to some ‘furtive’ filming by those camera operators daring to use 18mm – to the juicily personal – Borowczyk is described as having been a ‘lap dog’ in the presence of the film’s star and his wife Ligia Branice. The description of the director’s tendency to treat his actors as pawns or mechanical figures chimes with the chilly, cruel tone of the piece, but the speakers, at least, seem to have had a good time. ‘It was a fabulous adventure’, concludes Véry, but it is his earlier characterisation that somehow seems more credible: ‘Everything was completely weird’.

Words > Sebastian Manley