Year of Release - 2004
Rating ? Not Rated
Director ? Fabrice Du Welz
Running Time - 94 Minutes
Distributor ? Palm Pictures

Young Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz?s maiden feature Calvaire (The Ordeal) is one of the strangest, most oddly hypnotic and disquieting European horror films to come along in years. Du Welz takes a simplistically sadistic storyline influenced by classic 1970s horror cinema and ? rather than make the cynically gory, empty-headed torture-fest that so many young American hacks churn out when they claim to love ?extreme? 70s genre films ? he has delivered a profoundly eerie, dream-like little shocker that worms its way under your skin and stays there. It?s a great debut.

The plot finds traveling singer Marc Stevens en route to perform at a Christmas revue when his van breaks down in an unspecified wintry rural area. A disturbed man ? desperately in search for his lost dog ? takes Marc to the local Bartel Inn (the name of the hotel is a tribute to the late American genre director Paul Bartel, one of many homages to American horror films in Calvaire) to stay the night. Marc is the only lodger in the isolated country inn, and he forms an uneasy friendship with its eccentric elderly caretaker Bartel?who pines for his lost wife, and mysteriously warns Marc not to venture near the local village (whose dwellers seem to have an, er, unusual affection for their livestock). But the attractive Marc reminds Bartel a little too much of his departed bride, and the innkeeper isn?t too eager to have the singer?s van repaired and send him on his way?

To reveal much more would be to spoil some of the truly disturbing events that unfold, and watching Calvaire leaves one with the continual experience of sinking deeper and deeper into nightmarish territory indeed. Yet the film is not a bloodbath or shockfest, and ? even when depicting the most distasteful degradations (the climax intertwines the most shocking elements of Deliverance and Straw Dogs, if that gives any indication) ? Du Welz maintains an appropriately chilly (given the snowy landscapes), otherworldly tone, never gleefully savoring the sadism. The visual approach of the film is remarkable ? though ostensibly fairly naturalistic (Du Welz notes that he avoided making the inn absurdly gothic), the lighting by gifted cinematographer Benoit Debie (Irreversible) has a sickly and sometimes hellish hue, and the drama is punctuated by haunting images of the desolate winter landscape (the final shots of the film are perfect).

But it would be a mistake to look at Calvaire?s minimalist storyline and cinematic panache, and write it off as an empty stylistic exercise, for Du Welz also has an uneasy subtext that punctuates the film ? Calvaire is ultimately about male fear of becoming feminized, and it?s subsequently no accident that the filmmaker quotes the aforementioned Boorman and Peckinpah thrillers in the process (there?s also an amusingly obvious homage to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre?s climactic dinner sequence). Marc is first seen in the film applying make-up (for his performance), and he is the object of constant desperate affections in the film ? first from two older women attending his show, and then later from no less than two men who misguidedly believe him to be the vanished woman of their dreams (Du Welz also mirrors these misguided desires with the ludicrous outcome of the villager?s search for his lost pooch). Yet Marc is a blank cipher ? we empathize only with his pain, but as a character, he is empty, passive, emotionless; he is merely his physical beauty and an object of others? lust, and the film seems to regard that as the true horror.

Palm?s DVD of the film presents Calvaire in a nice 16X9 widescreen transfer (the film masterfully uses the 2.35:1 ratio); extras are minimal (the U.K. DVD of the film includes an early short by the director, but unfortunately that is not duplicated on the American release), but worthwhile. There is a half-hour interview with Du Welz, interspersed with videotaped actors? auditions and rehearsal footage, and making-of excerpts that most notably include a look at the stunning overhead crane shot that is used in the film?s most violent sequence. One could listen to Du Welz talk for the duration of the film, incidentally ? he?s highly enthusiastic yet also articulate and thoughtful, and he is obviously a significant talent to watch. Calvaire is highly recommended.