Calvaire: The Ordeal
by Fabrice Du Welz
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Brigitte Lahaie, Jackie Berroyer, Jean-Luc Couchard, Laurent Lucas, Philippe NahonDirector: Fabrice Du Welz
Brand: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP DISTRIBUTION
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-10-03
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Palm Pictures / Umvd
Movie Reviews of Calvaire: The Ordeal
Movie Review: Poor...
Summary: 2 Stars
This film pulls its punches at every opportunity.
The violence is off screen. The terror is implied; the gore minimal, the horror non-existent. Tension is sought only through the use of a long and boring introduction: It's almost 50 minutes before anything happens. I assume this is supposed to offset the mundane against "The Ordeal" to come. It doesn't.
The characters are one dimensional. The hero is a whining wimp who has plenty of opportunity to escape. The psycho hotelier is never anything but warm and friendly. And he remains amiable and quite likeable for the duration. There is nothing frightening about him at all. There is no subtle change from good guy to bad. There is no glimmer of the psychopath, no sign of suppressed rage: nothing freaky whatsoever. Apparently this is what the director wanted, some kind of sympathetic psychopath, but it just makes the rest of what happens in the film more confusing, ridiculous and stupid. The villagers are almost an afterthought, remembered only for their dancing.
And the much vaunted surrealism is just misplaced and evokes only derision in the viewer not intrigue.
The plot is thin, with enough holes to confuse even a casual observer. The acting, although adequate is let down by some poor prop & continuity work. Our hero is knocked unconscious by the innkeeper swinging a car battery at him; difficult to believe at best. Ropes are too loosely tied, muddy fields become snow covered become muddy fields again. That the deluded innkeeper believes the male cabaret artist to be his long lost wife is acceptable; that the village leader also shares the delusion is laughable.
In fact, only the bleakly shot countryside comes out of this with any dignity. And even then, you'll be thinking 'nice holiday destination' rather than 'Oo scary.'
I'm harsh on this film because it had the potential to be something very special. It could have done for rural France/Belgium what Deliverance and Southern Comfort did for the backwoods of the Deep South. It could have been a Misery or Psycho. Unfortunately it's a sloppily handled lame joke of a film. Indeed, Tartan could find themselves on the wrong side of a lawsuit for this release: Terror? Any character from The League of Gentleman has more scare potential than what's on show here.
Summary of Calvaire: The Ordeal
In the tradition of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, PSYCHO and DELIVERANCE comes this chilling Belgian horror that pushes the limits of shock filmmaking. Director and co-writer Fabrice Du Welz masterfully evokes a sense of deeply disturbing terror as Marc Stevens' world goes profoundly and utterly wrong. When his car breaks down in the middle of the isolated backcountry, he's forced to seek refuge in a rural inn. Marc is taken in by Bartel, a lonely and psychologically fragile innkeeper who promises to help. But when Marc catches him dismantling his car, he realizes that the innkeeper has other plans for him - sadistic plans that will push him to the bounds of human pain and suffering.Art House & International DVD Video
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