F IS FOR FRANCE

There once was a Polish film-director Walerian Borowczyk (I should write about him) who was commonly called a ‘genius who also happened to be a pornographer’. Like the best of us, right? Well, he inspired Bertrand Mandico a lot, and Mandico’s first feature film was an inventive biopic of Borowczyk’s life.

If someone ever makes a biopic about me, can it please be like that? It was my first Mandico (who had since become my favorite film director), and I was in love after the first few minutes. Svankmajer, Khytilova, Tarr, and more: bizarrely entertaining, strangely beautiful, and so perfectly disgusting. I actually did not think about Kobo Abe’s Box Man which is an obvious connection, because the similar subject is handled just as well but differently.

Also, Elina Lowensohn is perhaps my favorite contemporary actor.

Boro in the Box, 2011
Director: Bertrand Mandico