Walerian Borowczyk (1923 - 2006)
Talking about a man as diverse as Polish artist Walerian Borowczyk isn’t an easy thing to do. Summarizing his life on a single sheet of paper is almost impossible, but somehow, that’s what I’m about to do.February the third, 2006 Walerian died in Paris from heart failure at the age of 83. While he had relinquish the movie scene since the late eighties, Walerian Borowzyck was still a welcome guest in panels on film related events. Even a prestigious festival like BIFFF welcomed him as one of the international juries in 1987.
Born in Poland shortly after the First World War, Walerian Borowczyk started out as an illustrator during the late forties, but moved towards animation very fast. His first animations often lasted only a couple of seconds, but once he teamed up with artist The next logical step for Borowczyk was to move into live action features. His “Goto, l'île d'amour” (1968) starring his wife Ligia Branice, is his first full feature and balances on a thin line between drama and fantasy. His next full feature “Blanche” (1971) is a historical drama set in the middle ages. Everybody (from king to servant) is in love with the beautiful girl Blanche. The strong but destructive sexual powers that became a mark for the artist are already undeniable present in this movie. However nothing is explicit and at the time this movie was hailed by critics both for the way of filming as for the new master that had arrived Walerian Borowczyk.
Borowczyk, initial work as an animation artist and painter, shined through into his films, every character is as a puppet he sets in motion . His movies are very art house, but that’s only because he thinks as a painter, not as a director. His films are made by a collection of storyboards that are strictly to be followed and everything was formed in his mind before he started to shoot. Different from other art house movies is the fact that his pictures aren’t postcard-like but are filled with irony and attitude.
The 1973 short, “Une collection particuličre”, was originally intended for the upcoming “Immoral Tales”. A documentary about his private collection of vintage erotica. “Une collection particuličre”, was sure a sign of things to come. “Immoral Tales” which was released in 1974, eventually didn’t include “Une Collection Particuliere”, nor did it include “La bęte”, which was another short originally shot for this movie. However it did include 4 short films dealing with intentional incest, masturbation and horrible acts like murder and poisoning. The critics were furious and laughed it all away. A joke of bad taste or cheap porn were some of the many statements that were made. Needless to say that the movie wasn’t distributed very well and it took some time before it was released in the UK, where Borowzcyk had been hailed a couple of times for his master works. The prices he was used to receive from different film festivals stopped, but that didn’t stop Walerian in making his next big thing. “The beast”
1973, The London film festival shows a short movie to its audience. The movie is in fact a short feature called “La veritable histoire du la bęte de Gevaudain” this is the predecessor of what is to become “The Beast. Many in the audience were shocked, but when the full version is shown in 1976, the screening is sold out, weeks before it was actually shown. 
Borowzcyk returned to this kind of film making in 1977, with “Behind convent walls”. Once more this is a movie about the destructive powers of repressed sexuality. The film shows us a convent that looks like a prison, which is run by an older mother superior, but a closer look shows us masturbating nuns, lesbians peepshows and much more. The film has a very humorous tone, that makes the hard scenes a bit more bearable. “Behind convent walls” features the lovely Marina Pierro, a young actress that would become very important in later films. Marina even takes up a role in Borowzcyk next movie, “Three Immoral Women (1979).These last two movies are enjoyable but in 1980, Borowzcyk creates an really classic film: “Bloodbath of Dr Jekyll”. This Jekyll & Hyde story is without doubt the most unusual adaptation of the well-known book.
In 1985 Borowzcyk lost a lot of credits with the critics when he took fifth instalment of the commercially exploited “Emanuelle” series. However it seems that Borowzcyk knew what he was doing. “Emanuelle 5” was about a film in a film and on some occasions the trained eye can spot snippets of older Borowzcyk films. Although it has to be said that most of the work on this film was done by his assistant Nowadays most of Borowzcyk’s films are out of distribution and long forgotten and except for some of them they are hard to find. One can only hope that the death of this man will bring distributors back to senses and start making new copies of his older movies, because Borowzcyk was without doubt one of the most bizarre and unique filmmakers of the past years.
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