Dir: Jesus Franco
Star: James Darren, Maria Rohm, Barbara McNair, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a. Paroxismus – Può una morta rivivere per amore?

Watching the first couple of minutes of this, I was forcibly reminded of why I generally regard Franco as a talentless hack, who couldn’t direct his way out of a paper-bag. It begins with jazz trumpeter Jimmy Logan (Darren) digging his instrument up off a Turkish beach – for no reason we ever discover. He’s doing some random noodling on it, when he spots something washing up on the sand. Hanging his instrument on a convenient breakwater, he runs towards it… then Franco suddenly breaks into slow-motion. This was quickly shaping up to be the longest 86 minutes of my life.

But, actually, by the end, I was… Well, the word “enjoying” is probably still incompatible with me and any Franco movie, but I will stretch to tolerating it. There’s a lot here which is derisory, first and foremost being Logan’s voice-over, which drones on for virtually the entire movie, while failing to add anything of use. You’d think it might accidentally run into some insight, given the near-incessant commentary it provides, but no such luck. This reaches peak superfluousness near the end when it recites, word-for-word, the inscription on a gravestone which is clearly visible on screen. While it’s nice that Franco is taken the legally-blind into consideration here, those of us with functioning ocular equipment could do very well without it. And that’s not even counting painfully dated lines like, “Man, it was a wild scene, but if they wanted to go that route, it was their bag.”

It’s probably best to treat this as a cinematic love-letter to Rohm, then married to producer Harry Alan Towers. For the body of her character, Wanda Reed, is what Jimmy stumbles across on the beach. Cue a flashback to when he was playing at a ritzy party, when Wanda appears, drawing everyone’s attention, but in particular his. She wanders off with three friends: fashion photographer Olga, Arab playboy Ahmed Kortobawi (Kinski) and art dealer Percival Kapp. Jimmy follows and watches in horror as the trio sexually abuse, whip and eventually kill Wanda. Back in the present, he flees Istanbul for Rio after finding her corpse, but is stunned when Wanda – or someone identical to her – shows up there, and begins to extract vengeance on her three killers.. Jimmy become obsessed with the mysterious Wanda – much to the sadness of Rita (McNair), his singer girlfriend.

As should be clear from the above, any similarity to the work of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is purely coincidental. Though, along with Justine (another Franco/Towers feature), it does make Kinski part of an elite club: actors who have appeared in films named after the works of the men whose names gave us both the words of sadism and masochism. Yeah, that’s probably just a tad convoluted. This was never intended to be based on Sacher-Masoch’s book. The name was taken fairly late in the day, for purely commercial reasons – perhaps to cash in on the Velvet Underground song, which was released in 1967. Its original title was Black Angel, which remained the case in Germany. The Italian one given at the top translates as “Paroxismus – Can a dead woman live again for love?”, and should probably be considered as a bit of a spoiler.

For once, the delirious, dream-like quality of Franco’s directorial style works for the film, reflecting a world where we’re never quite sure what is objectively real. Indeed, the ending, with its not one but two (marginally) shocking and (extremely) implausible twists, seems to suggest the answer is: not much. Still, you can drift through its globetrotting, psychedelic fluffiness without it ever requiring too much attention, and a frequently unclad Rohm is not exactly a chore to look at. However, I could have done without a soundtrack which is best described as jazz honking of the most annoying kind. I was amused that it was partly-created by Mannfred Mann of Earth Band fame. He appears in the movie as a pianist, while Franco also cameos as a musician, playing the trombone.

It’s also very obviously padded, with about 40 minutes of actual content. There’s the initial murder, and the three scenes in which Wanda takes her revenge. Maybe add on the final reveals – though the jury is still out on the necessity of the car chase which precedes it, between the police and Jimmy + Wanda. Everything else? Skippable, particularly the gratuitous footage of Rio’s carnival. I’d have been happy to trade all of that for a slightly better explanation of what precisely is going on. The “trio of vengeance” sequences are not bad, being atmospherically shot, and imbued with a spooky sensuality, largely thanks to Rohm. Particular toasty is the encounter between Wanda and Olga. It begins with the former fondling a statue, in a manner that’s far more erotic than it has any right to be.

Kinski, playing an Arab (!), all but vanishes for the middle hour of the film, being the last of Wanda’s killers to receive their come-uppance. It is a little bit different from the previous, where she just seems to show up and guilt them either into a heart attack or suicide. This time, we get a kinda Arabian Nights-esque tale about a sultan and his obsession with a slave girl, that ends in the sultan/Ahmed dying of sexual ecstacy. But it’s little more than an extended cameo for Klaus, and the few lines he does have are dubbed. However, according to Franco, he did also work on the screenplay here, though Klaus didn’t receive any screen credit for it.

This should not be confused with the other Euro-flick of the same name, made the same year – that one was directed by Massimo Dallamano, and is rather more masochistically inclined. Nor should this be confused with a good movie. For I defy anyone to watch it, and provide an explanation to cover everything that happens, which makes logical sense, rather than raising more questions than it answers. That’s certainly not uncommon in Jesus Franco movies. But for once, I’ll tolerate it.