Malpertuis is a 1971 film directed by Harry Kumel, based on the 1943 fantastical novel of the same name by Jean Ray.
An androgynously handsome young sailor, Jan, gets off his ship at a dock, which happens to be in his hometown. He finds that his home was sold a long time ago and his family is gone. However, he catches a glimpse of someone he thinks is his sister, and he follows her into the red-light district. It turns out that the woman he saw was actually Bets, a prostitute as well as a singer in a sleazy nightclub. Someone clocks Jan over the head with a bottle and he's knocked unconscious.
He awakes in a very creepy mansion called "Malpertuis", having found his sister, Nancy (Susan Hampshire). The bizarre cast of weirdos that make up Jan's family includes his uncle Dideloo, Dideloo's daughter Euryale (also Susan Hampshire), Dideloo's mistress Alice (also Susan Hampshire), a creepy artist named Lampernist who hides in a cubbyhole under the stairs (Jean-Pierre Cassel), Nancy's boyfriend Mathias, some guy named Philaris who likes stuffing animals, and other freaks. This twisted family and its hangers-on all revolves around patriarch Cassavius (Orson Welles), Jan's great-uncle, a bedridden, dying old man. Everyone in the nightmarish house is hoping to collect from Cassavius's vast fortune when he kicks the bucket, while Cassavius himself fixates on Jan and wants him to become the new master of Malpertuis.
Finally Cassavius does croak. The terms of his will dictate that everyone gets a share of the fortune—but only if they stay in Malpertuis, forever. Jan and Nancy seek to find a way out, but, strangely, they seem unable to leave. Then things get weirder, and then still weirder, as Jan begins to doubt the very nature of reality in the strange house.
Besides playing the three roles listed above, Susan Hampshire also plays a nurse, as well as a woman named Charlotte who is crucial to the ending.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: The ending shows that Jan was a patient in an insane asylum and the whole story of Malpertuis was a fantasy that he wrote in his journal. Or was it?
- And You Were There: Most everyone from Jan's dreams (?) of Malpertuis, except for Cassavius, appears in the last scene where he's released from the asylum. Eisengott, the lawyer who reads the will, is the doctor who signs Jan's release. Bets the nightclub singer is a nurse. Susan Hampshire (Nancy/Alice/Euryale) appears as another nurse and as Jan's wife Charlotte.
- Bar Brawl: A wild chair-tossing fight in the dive bar ends with Jan getting conked on the head and waking up in Malpertuis.
- Big Eater: Cassavius, who despite the fact that he is dying is still ordering up entire roast pigs, much to the astonishment of his staff. (Well, he was played by Orson Welles.)
- Black Comedy: As the family is carrying Cassavius's coffin off to his grave, they drop it, and it tumbles down a ravine.
- Captured Super-Entity: For his own amusement, Cassavius kidnapped the now-weakened Greek gods, imprisoned them in his mansion, and made them believe they were people.
- The Chanteuse: Bets, the sexy singer at the dive bar, played by Sylvie Vartan. It seems she's also a prostitute, and when she seems willing to have sex with Jan for free, Jan is confronted by her pimp. It blows up into a Bar Brawl.
- Chekhov's Skill: Philaris's taxidermy skills. In the end it's revealed that he has been taking Greek gods and sewing them into human skins.
- Dream Within a Dream: Although it's hard to tell, the Gainax Ending seems to be this. Jan wakes up back in the seedy nightclub with Bets the singer/whore, who says he never went to any creepy mansion called "Malpertuis" and he's been in her dressing room the whole time. Insisting that Malpertuis is real, Jan leaves, disappears from Bets view, and sure enough finds himself back in the mansion, where Euryale explains to him the truth about the Greek gods. Then he finds himself in the insane asylum, where Bets appears as a nurse, implying that both the beginning scenes and the "wake up in Bets's room" sequence was also a dream...but that may be a dream as well.
- Foreshadowing:
- Alice, one of three sisters, is sometimes called "Alecto". Turns out that she is Alecto, one of the three Furies, along with her sisters.
- Euryale is the last person with Cassavius, who seems to help him die. Later Jan discovers that Cassavius was turned to stone in his grave. The ending reveals that Euryale is Medusa, one of the Gorgons, who turned people to stone.
- Euryale won't look Jan in the eye, as Alice, who herself is trying to seduce Jan, points out. Turns out that Euryale can't look Jan in the eye as she is Medusa and she would turn him to stone.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Cassavius found the Greek gods greatly weakened, and was able to kidnap and imprison them, because no one believes them anymore.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Jan finds Mathias nailed to the wall by a spike through his forehead. (Nancy and Mathias have been planning on escape.)
- Incest Subtext: Barely even subtext, given how Nancy is crawling all over Jan when he wakes up, caressing him and kissing his neck. She's obviously drawn to him, although she does have a boyfriend in the house.
- The Ken Burns Effect: The opening shot is a zoom-out from the illustration of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking-Glass, as a father talks about the story with a child. It's a broad hint that what is to come will be unreality.
- Laughing Mad: Philaris does a lot of crazed cackling, like early in the film when he says he wants to stuff Jan. He's cackling again near the end when he does try to stuff Jan, only for Euryale to save Jan. It turns out that he's been stuffing Greek gods into human suits.
- Or Was It a Dream?: The very end finds Jan, wearing a suit, being released from a mental hospital, the whole story about Greek gods having been held prisoner being a fantasy that he wrote in his journal. He is greeted by his wife Charlotte (yep, Susan Hampshire once again). She kisses him and leads him through a door—and he's back in the creepy shadowy corridors of Malpertuis. He is then confronted by a copy of himself, wearing the white shirt he wore in the mansion, striding towards him. Then the film ends.
- The Place: Malpertuis, a creepy old mansion that is probably going to be hard to move on the real estate market.
- Re-Cut: The English-language version was cut down to an hour and 40 minutes. The Flemish-language version runs a full two hours, but unfortunately has Orson Welles's dialogue dubbed in by a Flemish actor.
- Red Light District: Jan is led through a gate and finds himself in a red-light district teeming with sailors and prostitutes and dive bars, and lit by an actual red streetlight.
- Repeat Cut: After we seem to have come back to reality with Jan being released from a mental hospital, a triple Repeat Cut is used for the shot where Jan's wife Charlotte embraces him and kisses him. This is a broad hint that all is still not right.
- The Reveal: All the creeps and weirdos in Malpertuis aren't Jan's family and aren't even human beings. They are the Greek gods.
- Staggered Zoom: There's a staggered zoom down the hallway as Jan hears Mathias's screams from a room at the end. Jan runs down the hallway to find that Mathias has literally been nailed to a wall.
- Taken for Granite: When Jan opens Cassavius's coffin he discovers Cassavius has been turned to stone. Near the end Euryale reveals that all the gods have been turned into statues.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: The super-creepy Philaris is toting around a stuffed rat that he wants to show off to Cassavius. He also has a lot of weird freaky animal specimens in jars.
- Tontine: Cassavius's will reveals that all of his extended family will continue to receive their allowances, but only if they stay in Malpertuis forever. Then the last person alive gets everything.
- Twist Ending: All the creepy guests at Malpertuis aren't human beings, they are Greek gods that were imprisoned by Cassavius. That's followed by the All Just a Dream ending where the whole story is revealed to be Jan's fantasies while in an insane asylum—and then that's subverted by the Or Was It a Dream? ending where he winds up back in Malpertuis.
