The wonderful French director Jacques Baratier was in a playful mood for the expressionistic film PIEGE. Designed for a small in-group of fans (like Jacques Rivette's similar '70s "games" movies), it has had only limited exposure, literally taking me 40 years to finally watch it after putting it on my Want List way back in 1971.
Though only enlisted as actor, Arrabal tends to dominate the proceedings, as a loquacious owner of a shop adorned with animal bodies, where he sells various traps, from rat to bear. The demonstration of how they work is highly realistic (and dangerous-looking), as you wouldn't want one of these babies to snap shut on your arm or head by accident.
The two icons of French cinema Bulle Ogier and Bernadette Lafont are perfectly cast as a pair of footloose ladies, who visit our hero's mansion. Film begins with him buying a large (bear) trap, and Bulle getting out of prison.
Similar to several Rivette classics, most notably CELINE AND JULIE, most of the hour-long experimental exercise concerns Bulle & Bernadette's antics in the house, ranging from spooky to kooky. They leave destruction in their wake, and unlike her later trademark sang-froid roles, Bulle is ebullient -making faces, smiling broadly (hard to imagine!) and completely uninhibited. Fans are sure to enjoy seeing the two leading ladies in sexy lingerie.
Weak link here is Baratier's protagonist Jean-Baptiste Thierree (non-actor whose chief claim to fame was marrying into Charlie Chaplin's clan), who at times resembles Johnny Depp's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, but for me was somewhat blank, closer to Sikki Nixx's impersonation in the porn video EDWARD PENISHANDS (minus the makeup effects). It takes more than lots of eye shadow to impress me.
Much of the mansion footage is denoted by an overwhelming mood of S&M and B&D, with projections of John Willie-style fetish drawings of women in bondage on the walls, and even some explicit torturing, as the gals tie up J-B and whip him with riding crop. Bulle was later to make film history as MAITRESSE, the title figure of Barbet Schroeder's unexpurgated S&M classic.
Later a prominent indie film distributor in Manhattan (who I got to know in the '80s) Jackie Raynal pops up in a cameo as a half-clad tortured lady (she was a prominent film editor in Paris at the time, often working with Eric Rohmer).
Sometimes striking, the black & white photography is variable, with several scenes seriously under-lit, perhaps a symptom of no-budget filmmaking. This was clearly not a commercial project in any sense, but something of a goof. Baratier does achieve both surreal and even the intended expressionistic effects, without breaking the bank.
Though only enlisted as actor, Arrabal tends to dominate the proceedings, as a loquacious owner of a shop adorned with animal bodies, where he sells various traps, from rat to bear. The demonstration of how they work is highly realistic (and dangerous-looking), as you wouldn't want one of these babies to snap shut on your arm or head by accident.
The two icons of French cinema Bulle Ogier and Bernadette Lafont are perfectly cast as a pair of footloose ladies, who visit our hero's mansion. Film begins with him buying a large (bear) trap, and Bulle getting out of prison.
Similar to several Rivette classics, most notably CELINE AND JULIE, most of the hour-long experimental exercise concerns Bulle & Bernadette's antics in the house, ranging from spooky to kooky. They leave destruction in their wake, and unlike her later trademark sang-froid roles, Bulle is ebullient -making faces, smiling broadly (hard to imagine!) and completely uninhibited. Fans are sure to enjoy seeing the two leading ladies in sexy lingerie.
Weak link here is Baratier's protagonist Jean-Baptiste Thierree (non-actor whose chief claim to fame was marrying into Charlie Chaplin's clan), who at times resembles Johnny Depp's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, but for me was somewhat blank, closer to Sikki Nixx's impersonation in the porn video EDWARD PENISHANDS (minus the makeup effects). It takes more than lots of eye shadow to impress me.
Much of the mansion footage is denoted by an overwhelming mood of S&M and B&D, with projections of John Willie-style fetish drawings of women in bondage on the walls, and even some explicit torturing, as the gals tie up J-B and whip him with riding crop. Bulle was later to make film history as MAITRESSE, the title figure of Barbet Schroeder's unexpurgated S&M classic.
Later a prominent indie film distributor in Manhattan (who I got to know in the '80s) Jackie Raynal pops up in a cameo as a half-clad tortured lady (she was a prominent film editor in Paris at the time, often working with Eric Rohmer).
Sometimes striking, the black & white photography is variable, with several scenes seriously under-lit, perhaps a symptom of no-budget filmmaking. This was clearly not a commercial project in any sense, but something of a goof. Baratier does achieve both surreal and even the intended expressionistic effects, without breaking the bank.
