The new Disney movie Maleficent with Angelina Jolie has recently relaunched the figure of the fascinating and irresistible villain (together with a pile of more or less fashionable products inspired by the film...).
Jolie/Maleficent's image, the result of a carefully assembled shoot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, could be considered as revolving around the theme of the sublime, considered as something that attracts and frightens us at the same time. Yet this figure is not new in the history of cinema that features quite a few irresistible villains and mysterious creatures with magnetic eyes and a romantically dramatic edge. Check out for example Irena in 1942 horror/noir film Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur.
In the film Irena (Simone Simon), a woman of Serbian origins, turns into a deadly dangerous black panther when sexually aroused. Nobody believes Irena's stories, not even Oliver (Kent Smith) a marine engineer who falls in love with her and eventually marries her.
Though acting is not great and the story, based on Val Lewton's tale "The Bagheeta" (1930), is rather simple, the world of gloomy shadows conjured up by the director and some clever shots in a pool and in a drafting room lit by beams from the light tables, are pretty convincing and manage to create enough visual and psychological tension in the audience.
The most frightening thing about the film remains its almost unspoken main theme: Irena's ancestrally disturbing legends from her home country actually hint at feminine mystery, the "women/evil" dichotomy, dangerous sexuality and the ferocious and cannibalistic side of sex (early adverts for the film very aptly stated: "Kiss me and I'll claw you to death!"). The psychiatric who dismisses Irena's stories as fantasies symbolises indeed the dominating man, trying (and failing) to control and exorcise the power of the main character - the beast.
The film has also got a couple of connection with fashion: while the main character is also a fashion illustrator, the gowns are by costume designer Renié. Wanna bet there will be a remake pretty soon?
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