L’Amour est un fleuve en Russie

DIRECTED BY: Charles Matton

FEATURING: Dayle Haddon, Udo Kier, Piéral

PLOT: A secret society, said to have developed supernatural powers, mysteriously disappears from New York in 1937, then reappears years later in rural France to spread their anti-love ideology.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Spermula has the unique advantage of being two very unusual and completely different movies; at least one version should make the cut. As conceived by the director, the original is art-house erotica about a cult of libertines who attain a higher plane of existence through renunciation of art and all emotional attachments, including love. The exact nature of their secret society remains vague, and with their elusive backstory, dedication to “immodesty” and disgust with l’amour, even the other characters in the film routinely refer to the protagonists as “weird.” The film was later redubbed for Americans as a softcore comedy.

COMMENTS: As if Ingrid (Haddon) and her cohort of glamorous female companions weren’t strange enough—either as psychic cultists or aliens in human form—the town they arrive in is already a pretty weird place. Run by a corrupt, model plane-obsessed mayor, Monsieur Grop, the residents all connect through a tangled web of political and personal relationships. As the Spermulites insinuate themselves into this incestuous milieu, Grop enlists their next door neighbor to figure out what’s going on with the suspicious new residents.

The Spermulites quickly identify the most repressed citizens as their targets: the cardinal’s submissive housekeeper; Madame Papadéus, a widow obsessed with turning her son into the spitting image of her dead hairdresser husband; Grop’s wife, who exists in an uneasy love-hate relationship with her husband. Caught among them all is Werner (Kier), the mayor’s equally shady assistant scheming to increase his own power.

Determined to marry Sala, Madame Papadéus’ daughter, little does Werner realize she’s already engaged in an affair with the gardener, along with her sister, Liberte (a woman who lives up to her name). Their cousin, Cascade, a Cinderella figure used by her family as a maid, conducts her own secret liaison with an artist, and the couple’s genuine feelings for each other prove highly problematic for the Spermulites’ mission.

The town’s residents also exist in a fraught dichotomy with Ruth’s, the local cabaret run by a black woman. As one of the performers, Ivan the magician (Pieral), candidly states, some people only care about politics; but at the nightclub, they’re into “magic and partying.” Not surprisingly, the mayor seizes on any opportunity to have the club raided by the police.

Amid these competing Apollonian and Dionysian influences, the Spermulites seek to indoctrinate human beings into their philosophy without succumbing to that most horrendous of human weaknesses—romantic love. Why, exactly, they abhor emotions involving romance and creativity is difficult to tell, and perhaps lost in translation. They consistently denigrate the desire for worldly gain in all its forms, and yet they also secretly possess the world’s most valuable art collection (including the Mona Lisa; they replaced the one in the Louvre with a fake, of course).

Through their occult secrets, Spermulite society has achieved a state of perpetual languorous sensuality, in which they psychically communicate with one another and can even attain immortality. Though love is forbidden to them, sex is not. When they aren’t actively trying to recruit humans to their cause, they lie around naked on large beds dripping with satin sheets and practice “immodesty” on themselves and the statuary, in front of male witnesses.

Director Matton was primarily a visual artist, and the lavish production design provides ample evidence of his interests. Spermula came about with the relaxing of censorship laws, but it makes for a strangely tame work of erotica. There isn’t much actual sex, and hardcore scenes are limited to brief, artistically framed shots (these are all removed from the English dubbed version). Mostly, there’s a lot of nudity, both from real actors and sculptures, appearing in the background more often than not.

The version distributed to English-speaking countries completely re-cuts the film, adds stock footage and scenes from Silent Running, and dubs it with different dialogue, transforming it into a sci-fi comedy. It’s still a weird movie, mainly for the sheer incongruence between style and content, with the classy visuals set to a dub track determined to wring every last double-entendre out of the English language as the Spermulites conquer men through killer fellatio.

The alien angle actually works pretty well, since even when they’re human cultists, the Spermulites act like extraterrestrials. With their blank, perfectly made-up faces and haute couture costuming, they look like fashion mannequins come to life. There are many close-up and mid-length shots of Haddon, a successful model before she turned to acting, which emphasize her beauty through that “Old Hollywood” style. But the Spermulites also constantly remind themselves to be on guard against beauty and “everything that makes you objects of desire in this world.” They refer to their faces as masks and disguises, superficial appearances designed to achieve their goals, tolerable only because of their higher purpose.

Their psychic communication involves the transmission of “images,” of which Ingrid seems to be the most perceptive interpreter. This leads to many surreal and dreamlike sequences of pastoral and sensual frolics, some featuring blatant homages to classic paintings, like Las Meninas and The Garden of Earthly Delights. Asynchronous editing positions Ingrid as existing out of time, able to live through a moment in the present, while simultaneously experiencing past and future events through psychic waves and vibrations. This technique is used to significant effect in the conclusion, when the Spermulites host an extravagant house party and invite the whole town, complete with entertainment provided by the cabaret performers Grop derisively refers to as “degenerates.” But of course, in the end, the question remains, will love conquer all, and even Ingrid? Watch her face to find out.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“From the title, this 1976 French picture sounds like a low-budget porn vampire spoof (cf: Suckula, Sexcula, Gayracula), but no – it’s a weird mix of art and sex, with the sort of bizarre adult comic book science fiction premise found also in the likes of Zeta One or Toomorrow. . . The French original is more surreal than campy, but the English dub is full of yock-yock lines that show no one was taking it seriously (‘to describe the erotic practices of these sex-ridden morons, at once lewd and ludicrous, would make even an incorporeal vapor lose its lunch’).”– Kim Newman, The Kim Newman Web Site

(This movie was nominated for review by buke. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)