PAULA-PAULA

PAULA-PAULA

From prolific Spaniard Jesus Franco comes PAULA-PAULA, his latest effort to date (he turned 80 while filming it in 2010!) and one that the director describes as "an audio-visual experience". A film, then.

It opens with Paula (Carmen Montes) shivering in her apartment. Detective Alma (Lina Romay) enters and coaxes the terrified brunette from her chair.

Down at the police station, Alma attempts to question Paula about the murder of her lover, a nightclub dancer who was also called Paula (Paula Davis). Paula - the living one, obviously - refuses to respond with conventional answers; she insists that she is innocent, and blames Alma for the murder.

As she's left to stew in her own sweat, Paula begins to flashback to the events leading to her lover's demise. All of which allows for lots of neo-noir compositions, self-consciously angled camerawork and a healthy amount of female nudity. Add a whole heap of deliberate weirdness, a distinct lack of dialogue and a cracking retro score (provided by Friedrich Gulda [Franco's SUCCUBUS]) and you get an indulgent, surreal mind-fuck that shouldn't work ... but does.

In fact, I'd go so far as to compare it to the most recent works of David Lynch. Well, a noirish atmosphere, a murder mystery, an impenetrable plot and plenty of sexiness ... why not?

Mirror images merging symmetrically into each other in the middle of the screen are an effect that is overused, but they do at least call to mind the likes of Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger - further illustrating that this is Franco truly exercising his own excesses, and not giving a fuck about pandering towards an audience ... any audience. Which makes it all the more delicious that is actually highly watchable stuff.

The mystery angle is a moot point: it matters not who killed Paula, or whether the other Paula is in fact the guilty party. The film plays like a stream of consciousness which is bound together loosely by two protracted scenes - one intersperses a cleavage-heavy dance from Davis with some nice nudity from Montes, the other brings the pair together for some lesbian action - and achieves an authentic nightmarish feel as a result.

It's a mood thing, as amplified by that stunning score; ignore the storyline, it simply doesn't matter.

Well-shot and unusually well-edited for a latter-day Franco film, PAULA-PAULA may not be for many tastes (the above synopsis will have alienated some already, I'm certain) but at the very least demonstrates that here is a man who, after five decades in the game, is still willing to push the boundaries of convention and aim for something new.

Yes, it's pretentious and bewildering. It's also attractive and surreal. Flow with it. Let the music and odd visuals take you on Franco's journey.

PAULA-PAULA gets an uncut DVD debut courtesy of the newly resurrected Intervision label. It looks good in an anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer that preserves its original aspect ratio. Colours are bold without bleeding, images are relatively sharp and there is little in the way of digital noise - pleasing for a shot-on-digital video production.

Spanish stereo audio is decent throughout, while optional English subtitles do their job despite the odd glaring spelling hiccups.

The animated main menu page that opens the disc is nice enough, with colourful clips of semi-nudity and a nice bit of flute-led screwiness on the score.

A static scene-selection menu offers access to PAULA-PAULA by way of 4 chapters.

Extras begin with an optional introduction to the film from Franco. He describes it as "an unusual movie" which he shot, directed and edited himself (not usually a good sign) and expresses his satisfaction with the efforts of his cast. Most fascinatingly, the introduction was recorded half an hour after he'd completed the film - he hadn't even seen it at that point!

Next up is "Jess Franco on Contemporary Filmmaking". I subscribe to the old fellow's thinking that cinema is "the most complete art form in history" and he makes a lot of great points throughout this engaging 18-minute featurette. Regardless of what you may think of his own output (aside from FACELESS and, for reasons of nostalgia, BLOODY MOON, I can pretty much take or leave his work), Franco's passion for his chosen vocation in life can never be doubted. If you do happen to doubt that, watch this.

Finally we get "Jess Franco on PAULA-PAULA". Considering he doesn't want to give too much away because he believes the film works best "as a surprise", he manages to talk fluently about it for a good 8 minutes. He buzzes over a film that has been made with complete artistic freedom, discusses the ease of making low budget films on new mediums and enthuses over forthcoming projects he has planned. It's all good stuff.

Each of these bonus features is presented in 16x9 widescreen, in Spanish with easily readable English subtitles.

PAULA-PAULA gets a decent DVD release from Intervision, and is a surprisingly decent addition to Franco's latter-day canon.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Intervision Picture Corp
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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