Zachary Snider
London Metropolitan University
French Shock Cinema: The New Horror Genre
Windows Media Video
[Download Windows Media Player]
The liberal depiction of sex, no matter if it’s graphic and violent, or soft and sensual, as never been as taboo in French film as it has (and continues to be) in the rest of cinema’s global market. However, now that ratings boards in other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are desynthesizing their film ratings rules and allowing more sexual and violent acts to be permitted onscreen, French film has introduced Shock Cinema to compete (and blatantly out-shock) their horror and thriller competitors in this new millennium.
French Shock Cinema often deals with the subordination of women, mostly depicting French female protagonists as victims of graphic violence, rape and other sex crimes, or both. In France, the quantity of films in the Shock Cinema genre – which, when released in other countries, are labelled as purely ‘art house cinema’ – is increasing, thereby cementing that this new type of contemporary European horror film will be a long-lasting genre.
By examining the millennial films of Gaspar Noe (Irreversible, 2002 and Seul contre tous, 1998), Catherine Breillat (A ma soeur!, 2001 and Romance, 1999), Virginie Despentes Coralie (Baise-moi, 2000), and Remy Belvaux (C’est arrive pres de chez vous, 1992) via social, media and psychoanalytic theories, I discuss how creatures like monsters, vampires and demons now are depicted as being far less horrifying than modern day criminals, rapists and murderers. Also fascinating, these new French Shock Cinema directors employ classical horror film techniques to portray their 'monsters', including comparative cinematography, narrative, and pace. In modern day Paris, hunchbacks and werewolves simply do not frighten audiences like they used to.
