LA CRIPTA DE LAS CONDENADAS-- Jess Franco, 2012

LA CRIPTA DE LAS CONDENADAS

LA CRIPTA DE LOS CONDENADOS (2012) When I interviewed Jess Franco in 2005 he described this video project as being inspired by the writing of Nathaniel Hawthorne and was to be titled THE HOUSE NEXT TO THE CEMETERY. It obviously evolved unyil it finally appeared on Spanish DVD* as LA CRIPTA DE LOS CONDENADOS. Here is an except from Alex Mendibil’s essay on the film written in 2008, which appears in another blog post here. It also appears in Alain Petit’s essential critical study: “The 80's Golden Films productions showed how the Franco universe could rid itself of some of its essential elements without losing its essence. In films such as MACUMBA SEXUAL (1981) or EL SINIESTRO DR. ORLOFF (1982), we deal with familiar themes and classic gothic characters like the vampire or the mad scientist but without all the acting, set-ups or typical wardrobes. Castles, candles, crucifixes, cemeteries and sci-fi lab equipment were replaced by extravagant beach houses, fashionable clothing and everyday objects. The result was disconcerting, but somehow managed to articulate a less figurative and more abstract language in which the renewed versions of Orloff, Al Pereira, Radek or Red Lips still made sense. With the shift to video in the late 90's, the destruction of the traditional cinematic codes was definitive: no set-ups at all or overtly fake sets, natural lighting, direct sound, video distortion effects, and above all, non-professional actors hamming it up or, on the other hand, a very naturalistic, almost cinéma vérité feel. Any device used to maintain the illusion of cinema is removed or deformed to the point of parody, as if Franco wanted to emphasize the death of that former cinema and suggest an unrepresentative cinema, a cinema abstract (*), if you will. In LA CRIPTA DE LAS MUJERES MALDITAS, the rupture with mainstream cinema is complete. The film takes place in closed-off rooms, half-empty and white, and the only things we are allowed to see are a few looped images of a cemetery, and the blurred image of an angel shaped statue that illustrates the final battle against the cursed women. We know about that battle only through the voice- over since the images are only abstract and difficult to decipher at times. Adding to all of the above (lack of set-ups, costumes, performances, video effects, etc), Franco finally gets rid of the last two pillars of classic cinema: the director and the screenplay. As stated above, this is a story without story but Jess Franco goes even further and invents a funny trick to show that he too disappears from the set, letting the characters shoot the film with video cameras and, thanks to some strategically placed mirrors, discovering that nobody is directing them on the set. Fata Morgana, the real protagonist of the film, assistant director and cinematographer, directs the film literally in front of our eyes, shooting it while playing one of the cursed women at the same time. Nothing is hidden, everything is shown: lightning, cables, the boom mic and even the back of the camera. It is not a video documentary, no video-creation, no experimental video, it is something that still has no name. The only overbearance to the genre resembles a William Castle-style joke: at the half point, there is a "To be continued…" title card, then a fade to black, and then the movie starts up again with a “Part 2” title card on screen. According to Jess Franco, this is his own version of the double-bill features in the GRINDHOUSE (2007) style. Despite being shot on video, SNAKEWOMAN was an exception to this trend since it was made following the traditional cinematic standards.

Alex Mendibil (2008)” Dr. Mendibil’s observations are well taken in this context. Some may see the film as a plotless porn epic wallowing in nudity and lesbian sexual activity. Franco has gotten to the point here where plot is of no interest, as his article points out, there is only a seemingly eternal present. This seemingly eternal present is populated by several nude women, some seen via carefully placed mirrors, taping the action/non-action with cameras. As Mendibil notes, plot is irrelevant here, as is the concept of director. The performers are the directors, the auteurs, a concept which will be unsettling to some viewers and critics. One immediately thinks of Warhol’s experimental features of the mid 1960s, or the jarring moments of naked human interaction in various films of John Cassavettes.

Here is what I thought of the film in 2015. Since then my thoughts have evolved: Bless you, tremulous, throbbing flesh» a female narrator intones over a sensual interlude between several women in a room flushed with orange light. Yes, we are in the realm of Jess Franco and this is just one interlude in a two part 150 minute epic poem of joyous, mysterious, interactive, nonstop sensuality and erotic sensation. One doesn’t want to call it Sex, at least not of the traditional sort. It’s more a display of erotic signs and motifs in the cinema. A nude actress points a video camera at the camera shooting the scene, breaking through the «fourth wall» of cinema. The group of Sapphic lovers often look at the camera. the viewer, who becomes part of the «action» or matrix of figures pleasuring each other in a no-budget labyrinth of mirrors, wicker chairs and television monitors on which the encounters are caught from other angles. There is no comfortable plane of focus. The women seem to be moving in slow motion, or staggered motion. The image sometimes momentarily freezes. Sometimes we see the photographer of the film/film within the film and what she is shooting in the same set up

The interior is obviously someone’s apartment in Malaga, but it represents a crypt of our Lesbos lovers obsessively and with obvious joy loving each other in lieu of the Exterminating Angel (Bunuel’s?) who will arrive for the judgement which makes up LA CRIPTA DE LAS CONDENADAS II.LA CRIPTA 1 cap It’s all illustrated by the music of Bach, Hindemith, Ravel and Stan Kenton. Additional music by, of course, Daniel J. White. Originally scored and edited as films made in 2007 and screened at the 2008 Cinematheque Francais Jess Franco retrospective under the title A BAD DAY AT THE CEMETERY aka LA CRIPTA De las mujeres malditas, an earlier two part version with somewhat different music and editing. It should be noted that this experimental epic, which uses the Erotic Cinema format as an end to it means, is as obsessively personal and unapologetically expansive as the cinema of Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures), more New York Underground than Los Angeles porn. A totally immersive experience which imposes alternate spatial-temporal coordinates on the viewer. There is no There there, as Gertrude Stein famously wrote of a storied city. Now available on 2 DVDs with English, French, Italian and German subtitle options. Bonus features include a Jess Franco interview, 3 short films including Lina Romay tras la camara and more. PAL, will play ALL REGIONS. Widescreen Anamorphic 1.78:1/Audio DD 2.0 Spanish. From VIAL OF DELICATESSENS. http://www.vialofdelicatessens.blogspot.com.es" But that was then. This is now, 2025, and I have watched the film a number of times since finding further layers in a film which at first seem no deeped than the tender flesh of its actresses. The action, or non-action, unfolds in a timeless place, several room with shag carpeted floors and fitted with numerous mirrors and several television monitors. Time has stopped. The 150m runtime of both parts could take place in a split second or over a long night or a thousand and one nights. Aside for the opening shot of a large rock being battered by the surrounding sea and several shots of a generic cemetery exterior, the actresses are trapped (or liberated) in a hermetically sealed space, representsed perhaps by the director's apartment. *There was an earlier iteration which screened at the Cinematheque Francais Franco retrospective.