The Disquieting Guest — Calvaire and the Tyrannies of Desire
There is no denying that extreme horror, at its worst, fulfils pretty much every outside observer’s worst surmises about quote-unquote torture porn. But at its best, it has a merciless rigour that pushes viewers into places they may not wish to go but are important for them to confront. Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire (2004) is a case in point. Calvaire is a Belgian film and not, strictly speaking, part of the New French Extreme trend in horror films (Inside, High Tension, Martyrs, etc.). But if we reconsider the term slightly as the New French-Language Extreme, then it fits in very nicely with its dark cousins (and Martyrs, a France-Canada co-production, becomes a better fit as well). While not as gory as some, its unblinking willingness to explore the heart of darkness marks it, for me, as part of that loosely defined movement.*
“The Mysterious Appeal of Tintin” by Jonathan Wood
Hey guys, I’ve got this great idea. I’m going to write detective stories about a Belgian man-child and his alcoholic best friend. For kids! Clearly that shouldn’t work. It’s madness. Except Hergé started drawing his Tintin cartoons in the 1930s, and in 2011 the series was still popular enough for Steven Spielberg to turn it into a blockbuster movie. Hell, I’ve loved Tintin since I discovered him about twenty-five years ago. Clearly, there is some curious Belgian alchemy at work here. But what the hell is it?
