![]() Yet, the lesser of two evils rule seems to come into play, driving the audience to root for the townspeople when Marc becomes the subject of brutal violence and abject torture. ![]() When Marc hears a commotion in a nearby barn, what he witnesses is appalling and confirms Bartel’s advice. With Bartel’s ominous warning, we’re initially inclined to trust Bartel’s advice. By the end of the film, the audience will wonder if the “lost dog” was ever really a dog at all because it seems anything may fit the description if Boris wants it to. However, the silencing action is also dismissive, expecting Marc’s subservience. This reference seems to resurface when the entirely male-populated pub bursts into song and dance. It’s a quirky character trait that aligns with the weird behavior we’d see in the small-town eccentricity of a place like Twin Peaks. He helps Marc get to the inn but shushes Marc consistently along the way as he attempts to listen for the dog. Empathetically, the audience will see the character as benign at first. Similarly, Boris’ (Jean-Luc Couchard) detached presence generates general amusement while he painstakingly walks the woods over and over to find his lost dog. Revealing Bartel’s backstory of being jilted by his enormously talented singer-wife, a psychological transference develops where Bartel intends to keep Marc as his replacement wife. The sentiment isn’t reciprocated, and it isn’t until Welz shows Bartel without Marc that the audience witnesses something more nefarious being plotted. Though Bartel presents himself the same as Marc as a former entertainer, he’s also a lonely man thankful for the attention that comes with Marc’s company. However, there’s a strange atmospheric change when Marc is told to avoid the town.įabrice du Welz engages the audience with his oddball character setups, like the polarizing opposition of Marc and Bartel. The innkeeper, Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), has his quirks, but he’s accommodating, even offering to fix Marc’s van. Before arriving, his car stalls out, effectively keeping him in the middle of nowhere. Like Marion Crane in Psycho, inclement weather causes Marc to deviate from the main road but finds a hidden inn to take refuge. The story of Calvaire concerns Marc Stevens ( Raw’s Laurent Lucas), a traveling performance artist whose tour of old age homes may be a thing of the past as he prepares to head south for a Christmas gala that’s sure to bring stardom. While Calvaire is considered a Belgian film, it sits in a subgenre known as the New French Extremity movement, a trend of extreme horror films released in France at the start of the millennium, which include films like High Tension, Frontier(s), Inside, and Martyrs. All three films take place on the forest-covered French-Belgian border known as The Ardennes. The film would mark the start of Fabrice du Welz’s informal Ardennes trilogy, which continued with 2014 Fantastic Fest Best Picture winner Alleluia, based on the Lonely Hearts Killers, and concludes with 2019’s Adoration where a sheltered boy becomes infatuated with a mentally disturbed teenager. Image courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures.Ĭalvaire celebrates its nineteenth anniversary this year with a new high-definition remaster treatment. With the inquisitive pace of The Wicker Man and the gasp-inducing, violent shock of Straw Dogs, mixed with themes of personal possession and identity, Calvaire takes shape. Calvaire ( The Ordeal ) treads this path with magnificent patience, reminding us of the worst humanity has to offer. Down the first, you’ll see antagonistic villains in the role, as in Needful Things, Halloween, or Fright Night, but down the other path, you have townspeople you’d never want to encounter. There are two paths for movies where an outsider comes to town.
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