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Whip and the Body (La frusta e il corpo) [DVD]

Screenplay : Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra, & Luciano Martino

MPAA Rating : NR

Year of Release : 1963

Stars : Daliah Lavi (Novenka Menliff), Christopher Lee (Kurt Menliff), Tony Kendall (Christian Menliff), Isli Oberon (Katia), Harriet Medin (Giorgia), Jacques Herlin (Priest), Luciano Pigozzi (Losat)

Mario Bava began his career as a cinematographer on some 40 films before taking his place in the director's chair for the first time with 1960's Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio). Over the next 20 years, he became one of the most influential horror directors in the second half of the 20th century, although the breadth of his influence has only recently been acknowledged. Combining theatrical lighting effects with gothic horror and romantic themes worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, he created a new breed of horror film that was equal parts murder-mystery, occult, and slasher film. The techniques of such master filmmakers as Alfred Hitchock and Fritz Lang got thrown into the mix, as well, and the result is compelling and utterly unique.

His fifth film, Whip and the Body (La frusta e il corpo, aka Night is the Phantom, What), is a near-perfect distillation of the gothic romantic tradition that is twisted ever so slightly with a modern sensibility and wrapped up in sadomasochistic pleasure. It can be seen very much as an Italian response to the incredible popularity of the British Hammer Studio films, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Horror of Dracula (1958), which reinvented Universal Studios' gothic horror films of the 1930s for a new audience by bringing to the surface those films' sexual subtexts and increasing the gore factor with a few, well-placed splashes of bright red blood.

Bava works successfully within this framework while also expanding it, mixing romanticized shots of a setting sun on the beach with dark, claustrophobic scenes in dank, cobweb-draped crypts. Much of the story takes place in an ancient castle, and the candelabrums, velvet tapestries, and heavy stone walls add to the film's medieval atmosphere and emphasis on past sins that haunt the present. It is a world of sin and revenge, superstition and mystery, the kind of place where a grief-stricken mother turns the bloody knife by which her daughter slit her own throat into a kind of bizarre shrine.

When the film opens, the Menliff family, a decaying aristocracy that seems to be completely cut off from the outside world, is in turmoil because a banished son, Kurt (Christopher Lee), has returned to his ancestral home to reclaim his birthright. Kurt's sadism has been blamed for the suicide of a local girl, whose mother, Giorgia (Harriet Medin), is a servant in the Menliff castle. The familial relations are strange, to say the least. Follow closely: Kurt's former fiance, Novenka (Israeli actress Daliah Lavi), is now the wife of his brother, Christian (Tony Kendall), with whom their cousin, Katia (Isli Oberon), is enamoured. And, when Kurt returns to claim his birthright, he sees Novenka as being included.

Of course, Novenka never stopped carrying a torch for Kurt, and his return reinvigorates her secret sadomasochistic desires, which get played out on the beach when Kurt whips her brutally, followed by passionate lovemaking. The intense romantic relationship between Kurt and Novenka is complex and, to some, quite revolting, as it is based on the sadistic/masochistic pleasures of inflicting and feeling pain. Yet, their affection is oddly compelling, and Novenka's conflicting emotional response to Kurt--both terror and erotic passion--is the fuel that drives much of the narrative.

The story takes a turn, though, when Kurt is mysteriously killed, and Novenka begins to claims that his ghost visits her in the night and whips her. The plot then hinges on finding the explanation for these strange happenings. Is it Kurt's ghost? Was he not actually killed? Or, is Novenka simply hallucinating? Screenwriters Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra, and Luciano Martino constantly keep the question in the air by leading you toward one conclusion, then pulling the rug out from under you at the last minute. At one point or another, every character seems to be guilty of something.

Shot in lush Technicolor on a limited, but healthy budget, Whip and the Body crystallized the intricate visual style Bava had been developing since 1960, also evident in the atmospheric Black Sabbath (1963). Bava tends to like staging scenes that are crammed with information; the elaborate sets he uses are filled with detail and nuance, and his extreme use of wild colors gives each sequence a slightly otherworldly, staged appearance. He keeps his camera constantly in motion, soaking up the gothic environment in a way that demands repeated viewings. At the same time, he is capable of effectively using minimalism, such as the film's creepiest shot that depicts in extreme close-up Christopher Lee's hand, bathed in sickly green light, reaching out of the pitch darkness right at the camera. It induces the kind of response where you find yourself drawing back into your seat to get away from it.

Of course, some critics at the time felt that much of Bava's work was just sadistic (some still do). And, in a way, it is. Especially in 1963, Whip and the Body's scrupulous attention to the horrid physicality of the whippings (the camera moves in lovingly whenever Novenka's bare back is being lashed) was quite shocking, but even more so was Novenka's eroticized reaction to the brutality. The mixing of sex and violence is always an uneasy concoction, and Bava's film makes the connection clearly and unequivocally.

Whip and the Body was banned completely in Italy when it was first released (everyone involved with it used pseudonyms, including Bava, who went under John M. Old). Outside of Italy, it was heavily censored to the point of near incoherence. Thus, it has been difficult to find it in its complete form for many years. Thankfully, though, it is now available as Bava intended to be seen, in the uncut version that is a masterful work of sadistic visual prowess and wonderfully, luridly over-the-top romanticism.

Copyright © 2001 James Kendrick