Maddening Noise (The Blue Villa)
Synopsis
Sarah-the-Blonde gently but firmly manages the Blue Villa, a house of pleasure, set on a rocky island overlooking the sea, forgotten in the torpor of the Eastern Mediterranean. Among her clientele, strange Chineses are attracted by the lure of young flesh and also by the mah-jong tables with their ivory tiles, the noise of which, they say, can drive men mad...
Credits
Actors (9)
Production and distribution (4)
- Co-productions : Euripide Productions, Arte France Cinéma
- Foreign production companies : RTBF - Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française, Nomad Films, Cab Productions
- Film exports/foreign sales : Playtime
- French distribution : Ursulines Distribution
Full credits (18)
- Adaptation : Dimitri De Clercq
- Screenwriter : Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Director of Photography : Hans Meier
- Music Composer : Nikos Kypourgos
- Assistant Director : Denis Seurat
- Editor : France Duez
- Sound Recordist : François Musy
- Costume designer : Bernadette Corstens
- Foreign Producer : Jacques De Clercq
- Producers : Jérôme Paillard, Gérard Ruey, Jacqueline Pierreux
- Executive Producer : Dominique Fobe
- Co-producer : Gérard Ruey
- Camera Operator : Patrice Cologne
- Press Attaché (film) : Annie Bichet
- Production Designer : Alain Chennaux
- Casting : Nathalie Chéron
- Artistic Director : Alain Chennaux
- Still Photographer : Laurence Tremolet
Media Gallery
Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Fiction
- Sub-genre : Drama
- Production language : French
- Coproducer countries : France, Belgium, Switzerland
- Original French-language productions : Unspecified
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Selections (2)
Delegations (1)
About
"I met Dimitri de Clercq in New York in 1988. He was one of my cinema students at the university. I immediately thought he could be the assistant director that I had always dreamed of. I had a film project from Brazil. I soon came round to Jacques and Dimitri de Clercq's way of thinking : Hong kong and Macao would suit the story much better than the tourist paradise of the Seychelles. With Macao, the game of mah-jong imposed itself, the demented click of its tiles and the film's French title. Throughout our often reworked screenplay, Dimitri's role changed imperceptibly from assistant to co-director."
(Alain Robbe-Grillet)
“The Blue Villa" On a sultry méditerranean island, local villagers are frightened by the ghost -like return of Frank, a man who mysteriously disappeared after allegedly killing a scintillating young Eurasian girl, Santa. But, Thieu, the wary police chief, decides to re-open the case. Sifting through a maze of superstition and rumour originally instigated by the murdered girl’s incestuous stepfather Nord , but now carefully exploited by Frank and Sarah, the voluptuous owner of the town bordello, Thieu discovers that Santa is still very much alive, and that the real crime is about to take place.
This is an intellectual detective story with a hauntingly lyrical surface tortured or sinister characters, perverse beauty and intriguing riddles. Like all the pictures directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet a famous writer and director, The Blue Villa” suggests an intricate puzzle or maze, but with images which grip you.
