Black Moon

Plot synopsis:
A young girl, Juanita, finds her parents killed in a voodoo ritual on a distant tropical island. She escapes with her life, but when she reaches adulthood, she feels compelled to return to the island, bringing her daughter and nanny with her. Once there, she goes to stay with her uncle who lives on the island. She soon discovers that the natives, who had been using her for voodoo rituals when she was a child, now treat her as a voodoo goddess. In this role, she begins leading their rituals.
Any attempt to fight Juanita's influence or to remove her from her position is met with violent force. One person is found dead in a lava pit, while another is found hung. At one point, Juanita is so overcome by the voodoo curse that she offers her daughter up for sacrifice. Juanita's businessman husband, Stephen, follows her to the island and attempts to travel into the jungle to rescue her, but finds her taking part in a sacrifice of an innocent woman. Although he shoots the high priest of the tribe, Juanita completes the sacrifice herself.
Their high priest injured, the natives now plan to murder all of the white people on the island. Stephen takes his daughter and two others into the fortified section of a plantation house. The natives succeed in capturing Stephen and his secretary, Gail, but they are eventually rescued. In the end, Stephen shoots and kills Juanita just as she is about to sacrifice her own daughter.

Tags: pornographic, allegory, violence, alternate reality, absurd, psychedelic

Review:
In the mid-70s when this film was made there was - in the real world - a 'battle of the sexes' with militant feminism in full swing (if not an actual 'war', there was a lot of bruised feelings and anger in the air - witness works of fiction like 'Who needs men?' and 'The Woman's Room'); the student riots of the late 1960s were a fresh memory, as were images of Vietnam (and for British viewers, the latest IRA atrocities).
Black Moon may not 'make sense', but it's more understandable as a dream, from beginning to end (forget the idea that any of it is meant to be set 'in the near future'), by a pubescent girl, subconsciously worried by the apparent war between the sexes and disturbed by her budding sexuality (note the juxtaposition of the idealised vision of heterosexual love, presented by music from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde first heard on the car radio, quickly followed by the shocking images of war).As mentioned elsewhere, this is beautifully filmed, and IMHO captures beautifully the quality of dreams where one event follows another in a 'stream of consciousness' manner (yet with certain obsessive themes), and the dreamer does everything as if it were the most rational thing to do (as one does in a dream).
Such events occurred in this film contains a talking unicorn, a teenager breast feeding an old woman (and later a unicorn?) and a naked children, frocking around the meadow as if nothing were watching them.
And I have never seen it on cable tv (Sundance, IFC, you listening?).A neo-surrealistic fantasy, it was promoted in newspaper ads in Germany as The Movie Where Animals Talk to People!Weird and wonderful from beginning to end, IMHO.
Louis Malle's surrealist experimental film "Black Moon" could very well fit into this category of the directors' own interpretation of the novel giving it their own "free form"!
Set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop of a "war between the sexes", this film simply chronicles the weird happenings as experienced (or imagined?) by a teenage girl, Lily (Cathryn Harrison) who has narrowly escaped being killed by men seemingly out to wipe out the entire women populace!
The house is dwelled in by a cantankerous, bed ridden old lady (Therese Giehse) with a weird fetish, who talks to animals, especially a big rat-like creature "Humphrey" in some language that's gibberish, and every once in a while speaks on a radio kept by her bed.
The most bizarre of all though, is the presence of about half a dozen naked children running around playing with a gigantic pig; they keep interrupting Lily's path every time she chases a not-so-graceful Unicorn that seems to be a regular visitor around the property..Everything sounds very interesting for film lovers who love their films rife with surreal dreamscapes but frankly it doesn't go much beyond this.
The film surely holds our interest for most of its modest running time of about 95 minutes thanks to the splendid camera-work by the genius cinematographer Sven Nykvist and the rather awe-inspiring sound design.
Malle even tries to infuse some allegorical allusions to the Indian epic Ramayana (a particular episode involving "Jatayu", the demi-god possessing the form of a vulture, who tries to save Sita from Raavana's clutches!) but it doesn't necessarily create a huge impact in the overall proceedings.This is an English language film and Cathryn Harrison, portraying Lily clearly speaks in English.
Weird movie by Louis Malle, Which was filmed at Malle's own Manor, with Joe Dallesandro acting in his first (and only), non speaking role, Playing the brother of a twin sister.
The film starts off with a girl, played by Cathryn Harrisson (Actor Rex Harrison's granddaughter, who was only 16), driving in her car in the dark and runs over some kind of beaver or something, later on down the road she encounters a road-block, put up by men with army suits and gas masks.
In order to write a review that might add something useful to the many already written, I will try to point out some elements that could affect your enjoyment of this movie thereby helping you decide if you want to spend the time watching it, to wit:First off, it's not sci-fi.
On the other hand, this muddled romp through Louis Malle's rather...er..."peculiar" mind has all of the charm of a full-for-5-days, fish offal bin, on a hot August afternoon.The reviews that allude to this film being allegorical and/or composed of a parable(s) and/or containing deep "messages" regarding war, social inequity, animal rights, etc., etc., ad nauseum must have Malle rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically.
The point is that there is no point to this movie and it is likely deliberate!So, if you like watching films that are well-produced, well-photographed, artless euro- bourgeois, jumbled stream-of-consciousness, incoherent, pseudo-socially mindful, plot- free, products of Louis Malle's contemporary (to 1975) musings and possible masturbatory fantasies, then "Black Moon" is for you!
Cathryn Harrison (who co-starred in Robert Altman's Images a few years prior) plays a young woman named Lily who is trying to escape from an apocalyptic war zone (it seems that the battle of the sexes has come to its culmination, and men and women are slaughtering each other willy-nilly).
It leads her to an out-of-the-way mansion in the middle of nowhere, and it's populated by a dying old woman, her twin grandchildren (an androgynous set of male-female twins, both named Lily, just as the heroine) and an unspecific number of always-nude children who run around the farm driving various sheep and swine.
I have to confess though that the piano scene threatened to send me under again.Finally, I couldn't say that I liked this movie, but at the same time I couldn't say I particularly disliked it either (I would have slept thru the whole thing if I did).
for instance i would say the scene in the end with the two children singing while the girl was playing piano was trying to evoke the same feelings u would get from looking at a picture from the Renaisance era.Hell if u had everyone in the shot freeze and told an artist to paint what he saw with the exact lighting and etc it would look like a Renaisance painting.
It probably has something to do with coming of age, but the "something" it has to "do" with is so blurry that it's just not worth the bother of bringing it into focus.The film does have one redeeming feature: it makes you feel like going out and doing something useful in the world to make up for the 100 minutes you totally wasted watching it.
I had missed out on this on French TV a few years ago – the film is so obscure that I had never even heard of it back then!; eventually, I caught up with it while in Hollywood on bootleg DVD-R in an English-dubbed version (as was this current edition, albeit a slightly out-of-synch one!).Best described as a plot less apocalyptic surreal fantasy on "Alice In Wonderland" lines, it actually precedes Claude Chabrol's own superior modernized take on the children's classic (ALICE, OR THE LAST ESCAPADE [1977]).
The leading lady of BLACK MOON is a beguiling Cathryn Harrison, granddaughter of Rex; also in the cast are Alexandra Stewart and Joe Dalessandro as incestuous siblings (neither of whom ever utter a single word, though he likes to express himself in baritone!).The film's war-torn landscape is undercut by a plethora of entomological detail, beginning with a raccoon getting crushed under the heroine's car's wheels and ending with a snake slithering up her skirt!; there is also a giant rodent – with which the eccentric old lady of the central setting, a dilapidated country-house, frequently engages in gibberish conversation (for whatever reason, she also keeps a control center by her bedside!) – and a squat talking brown unicorn, which seems to particularly intrigue Harrison!!The elderly woman – who died before the picture was released (in fact, it is dedicated to her memory) – occasionally takes the semblance of death even here and, when she comes to again, finds herself craving milk: Stewart and, eventually, Harrison oblige her in this regard – the film, then, ends on a shot of the heroine about to feed the afore-mentioned horse in the very same manner!
Harrison, too, seems fond of milk – which she repeatedly drinks out of a very tall glass set at table, always with a pig nonchalantly looking on!; besides, a brood of wild naked children are continually seen chasing a hog all over the place.In the end, the film proves too obscure and personal for complete success and, yet, it is certainly not to be ignored by way of its intrinsic strangeness and undeniably haunting quality..
Louis Malle had just made "Lacombe Lucien" before,and it's not hard to find out that's it's he -not Lily- who escapes from the cruel world where man wages war.At the beginning of the movie Malle warns us:"forget your logic,brace yourself for a world close to your dreams."He 'd better have said "for your nightmares"Lily plays some kind of little red riding hood,that brings an old lady his breast by way of butter pot and galette.She found a bad-tempered unicorn (always the fairy tales!) and twins (Alexandra Stewart & Joe Dalessandro) always dumb ,who seem to be the old lady's offspring.The dreamlike genre is one of the most difficult to handle:Malle's movie is partial success.The main problem is that we know nothing about Lily,about her life ,her frustrations.When Bergman uses dreamlike scenes like in "wild strawberries",we see the connection between the hero and what he dreams about.Here,the connection escapes us,that's why,after a while,we don't care that much about Lily's fate.The ending disappoints,it should open a new gate,or another crack in Alice's mirror (Carroll's influence abounds,remember the crying flowers),and it seems that Lily is now part of the furniture..
The second time made more sense (or as much sense as it can make!) and the allegory worked for me.I've never delved into Malle's films, and this was probably not the best place to start, but the Alice in Wonderland connection intrigued me and I was not disappointed..
I'm glad to report that this very rare picture by the great French master Louis Malle is finally available on DVD, with the Italian title "Luna Nera", in a splendid digital remastered copy, without any artifacts and with a crystal clear, sharp image that looks exactly like the original print I saw at the cinema, exactly 30 years ago.
Instead of this, it just gradually builds up a huge disregard for a movie that presented itself with an excellent openingOf course one can indulge self in seeking the true meaning of a given scene, hidden messages or themes running throughout the film.
Or maybe even that also the elderly woman is the same person as the girl and that woman, because the repeated breastfeeding symbolizes a never ending cycle of life, happening even in the time of war blah-blah-blah how much more boring can this movie get?
Was the often running around of the girl also to mean something, or was it only put in the film to wake up the audience falling asleep?Aside from a great black and white movie poster, this picture presents us with an extraordinary performance by the leading actress Cathryn Harrison, who must have been of only 15 or 16 years of age at the time of the shooting.
The free-flowing narrative of "Black Moon" is hard to describe,but basically it's the story of a teenager(Cathryn Harrison)who witnesses a war between the sexes and finds herself involved in numerous dream-like situations at a country estate.She meets strange family,naked children and various animals including unicorn.Obviously inspired by "Alice in the Wonderland" and Robert Altman's "Images" "Black Moon" is truly bizarre and unforgettable.Here is what Louis Malle said about this peculiar fantasy piece:"I don't know how to describe "Black Moon" because it's a strange melange-if you want,it's a mythological fairy-tale taking place in the near future.There are several themes;one is the ultimate civil war...the war between men and women.I say the 'ultimate civil war,'because through the 1970s we'd been watching all this fighting between people of different religions and races and political beliefs.And this was,of course,the climax and great moment of women's liberation.So we follow a young girl,in this civil war;she's trying to escape and in the middle of the woods she finds a house which seems to be abandoned.When she enters the house,she obviously enters another world;she's in the presence of an old lady in bed,who speaks a strange language and converses with a huge rat on her bedside table.She goes from discovery to discovery-it's a sort of initiation.".
You might consider this an apocalyptic version of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"..."Why did Lily throw clocks out the window?" Well, to see time fly, of course...Writer-director Louis Malle is behind "Black Moon".
Stay tuned for the answer to this question and a surprise bonus...*** Black Moon (9/24/75) Louis Malle ~ Cathryn Harrison, Therese Giehse, Joe Dallesandro, Alexandra Stewart.
But on the other hand, at least other movies of this type are typically slices of real life, whereas this one is just a bunch of weird things, like a dream as mentioned elsewhere.
Louis Malle (who, at this point in time, had been directing films for 20 years) gave me no indication with Black Moon (a seriously misguided and mistitled fantasy picture) that he was a professional filmmaker who had a firm command of his craft.Black Moon was inexplicable rubbish that tried so hard to be bizarre and weird, but only succeeded in being an utter bore of foolish nonsense.I swear that Malle and his movie-crew were making this one's story (what there was of one) up as they bulldozed their way along.Besides the totally idiotic lesbian, breast-feeding sequences, this stupid picture also hinted that the children who were dancing around on the property in the nude were, in fact, being used as someone's sex toys.I found this movie to be totally sickening.
Designed as a Deep, Disturbing, Coming of Age Allegory, this is a Bizarre, Enchanting Film but is at Times Very Unsettling and Nightmarish.Animals, Including a Unicorn, Speak.
At the beginning of "Black Moon" we see a young woman (Cathryn Harrison) trying to negotiate a war-torn countryside in a car.
It feels like a variation on "Alice in Wonderland" as designed by Salvador Dali.In my best interpretation of this film, it is a dream of the girl's.
The war between the men & women seemed like just an excuse to drive the young girl to the house where the animals talked, the people sang, and the kids ran around naked.
Or getting to view a rarely-seen cinematic conundrum also created by Louis Malle.That would be "Black Moon," made in 1975 and featuring Joe Dallesandro and Cathryn Harrison, grand-daughter of Rex Harrison, and a gaggle of naked children running wild with a large white pig.
And a manor house where something is always cooking.Without a doubt, Malle's "Black Moon" is one strange and beautiful movie concoction.
Along with Giehse, who stars as the crazy old lady of the manor house ( surrounded by sheep, goats, pigs and the naked feral children ), Dallesandro and Alexandra Stewart as Brother and Sister Lilly round out the credited cast.The photography for "Black Moon" is sumptuous.
At this point, the cranky old lady has disappeared, the unicorn has reappeared for about the fourth time, and Lilly closes the window and retreats into the on-going hallucination of this manor house.And then, the film freeze-frames on an image of her beautiful face and penetrating eyes, and then simply fades away.
Though there are some fleeting suggestions of sexual awakening, they're just impressions added to the mix, not real components of the plot, and not the key to the hidden meaning of the story.The main characters are always interesting to watch: Lily fair and slim and intent on discovering what's going on and flushed by the effort, the son and daughter (Joe Dallesandro and Alexandra Stewart) all cheekbones and enigmatic looks and practically no words spoken, the old woman (Therese Giehse) alternately plaintive, furious, comatose, malicious, welcoming, and bizarre--she talks to a rat, and he talks back.
Louis Malle made some bizarre films, but "Black Moon" takes the cake.
A gorgeous young blonde (Cathryn Harrison), who is fleeing from a war that has broken out between men and women, arrives at a country mansion where naked children run with sheep, a unicorn patrols the grounds, Joe Dallesandro maintains the garden, a bed-ridden old woman communicates with partisans via two-way radio, and the same old woman routinely feeds from the breasts of Joe Dallesandro's sister.
But that doesn't explain the sheep; the turkeys; the huge talking rat; the short, shaggy, talking unicorn; the war; the WWII radio; the mother, brother, and sister's relationship; Lily's actions from beginning to end; the costumed houseguests; the black eagle; eating the ant infested cheese; nursing granny; etc, etc, etc...I suspect the movie may be full of symbolism and hidden references but all I saw was one long surreal visual nightmare (with surprisingly very little dialog).
There are animals doing strange stuff, there is a rather absurd i.e. overly symbolic war between men and women (carrying whatever left-wing meaning it probably carries), and there is an old woman that seems to have a taste for fresh human milk.
Did I mention that Joe's name is also Lily?Where else but in a 70s European "art film" will you see a 75 year-old hag suck on the nipples of a young woman (her own daughter)?
The long scenes in the bedroom of the ugly old lady bored me to distraction.The hordes of naked children did give a bizarre aspect: but this is a film where nothing really seems to happen.