Disc Reviews

Rapture Blu-ray

• 30th Jul 2014

Rapture is one of those old films that are a treat to come across. On viewing one wonders: why a) haven’t I seen this before? or b) how could I have missed this one? The same could be said on its release: why did it play in so few places and endure such a short run? It has a lot going for it: it is a truly international film with actors (including a Hollywood veteran) from the USA, Britain, France and Sweden, a director in John Guillermin used to making big epics but is also a difficult director to categorise, backing from 20^th Century Fox as well as a small French one, an original story (albeit from a source novel) as well as being intelligently made by all involved. Its lack of previous success may have something to do with the fact that the heroine (brilliantly played by French actress Patricia Gozzi) may or not be mentally ill – she has a constant fear that a domineering father will put her in the local asylum at a time when such subjects were too quirky and not guaranteed Oscar or box-office winners. More on this later.

Made in 1965 Rapture is a nicely shot black and white picture that captures an unglamorous wildness of a Breton coastal town. Agnes is a 15-year-old girl who is ‘cared’ for by her elderly father, a rather reclusive and depressed retired judge. Her older and it has to be said far less attractive sister is being married off. Agnes is left to live alone with her father and his attractive blonde housekeeper Karen. Agnes lives in a world of her own making. At first she seems simple and is treated cruelly by her domineering father who is very quick to put her down and mock her. He cruelly berates for behaving like a child while she plays with a doll and angrily throws the doll off the cliffs leaving it very damaged. Agnes retreats further into an interior life and with the help of Karen she builds a scarecrow from some of her father’s old clothes. She invests a personality into the creepy scarecrow and talks to it; more worries for her father that the girl will need to be committed. One day while the three of them are walking they witness a police van careering out of control and crash with the prisoners inside escaping. One of the men runs past the family after knocking a policeman out (he later dies) and successfully escapes. The escaped convict hides in the family’s barn while the police are hunting him down. Frederick, the father takes pity on the man, believing that he will not see liberal justice, while Agnes believes he is the scarecrow come to life and continues to believe this as she falls in love with him.

Rapture is a curio of a film, but it does have some precedents. In the Hayley Mills classic, Whistle Down the Wind (1961) Hayley believes that the escaped convict her and her friends are protecting is Jesus while in another glossier film that was made by MGM called Light in the Piazza (1962), filmed in the glamorous location of Florence has Yvette Mimieux play a 26-year-old American girl who had suffered a head injury years before and grows up mentally slow enjoy a relationship with an Italian boy (George Hamilton) much to her parents chagrin. There was also the British film, Morgan – a Suitable Case for Treatment made the following year that dealt directly with mental illness. There are significant similarities with all certainly the first two mentioned films, although it has to be said that Rapture is more ‘arthouse’ than either of these films. Gozzi, an under used actress is superb in the lead, utterly convincing while remaining unusually beautiful. She seems to light up when she is in the full flush of her relationship with escaped convict Joseph, somehow innocently played by former child star Dean Stockwell. Meanwhile, their relationship is met with a disapproving eye from former Hollywood leading man Melvyn Douglas, the man who in ad campaigns for Ninotchka (1939) made “Garbo laugh” here would fail to raise a smile from anyone – a role that someone like Ingmar Bergman regular Max Von Sydow could have played with some depth.

The film has been criticised by some as too grim but it draws you to the inevitable Freudian death wish of the film that leads to the ultimate relationship between that of the daughter and her father, remaining the most powerful challenge of the film. How rare it is to find a film that is a forgotten classic ripe for re-discovery. Eureka!, the label the film is released on have been criticised for claiming some of their films to be classics but this film does deserve a wider audience but it is doubtful it will receive one here despite the best efforts of the label. The only extra on the disc is a nice readable context setting essay by Mike Sutton.

Chris Hick