Rapture Blu-ray Review

Director: John Guillermin

Starring:  Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Gozzi, Dean Stockwell, Peter Sallis, Leslie Sands, Ellen Pollock

Running time: 105 minutes

Certificate: 12

John Guillermin’s 1965 RAPTURE is a strange and mesmerising beast: part melodrama and part dark gothic fantasy. This French and American production explores a teenage girl’s coming of age and sexual awakening, all against the dramatic backdrop of the Brittany coastline. It’s a visually stunning production, filmed in black and white Cinemascope which does the landscape justice. Combined with Georges Delerue’s haunting score, RAPTURE immediately weaves a spell over the viewer, drawing you into its strangeness.

And this is definitely an odd film. Agnes (Patricia Gozzi) is a sort of girl-woman, kept isolated by her father in the middle of nowhere, frozen on the cusp of womanhood as she plays with her dolls. She exists in a kind of semi-fantasy world where she invests a scarecrow with sentience, and sometimes erupts into hysterical overreactions. Quite whether her father, retired judge Frederick (Melvyn Douglas) is her protector or her prisoner is open to debate, and you’ll change your view throughout the film. He can show touching warmth and love towards his daughter, but at other times an incredible cruelty, such as when he shows old family footage of her dead mother before saying how Agnes is nothing like her. Agnes leaves in tears, however later on we find Frederick has his reasons.

Patricia Gozzi is astonishing as Agnes. She’s absolutely superb as the wide-eyed, innocent and slightly unhinged teenager. One minute she’s lost in her fantasy world, the next she’s exhibiting a murderous rage, and we find out Agnes had previously been committed to an asylum by her father. When Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap, Battlestar Galactica, DUNE and PARIS, TEXAS) appears as escaped convict Joseph, she becomes convinced her beloved scarecrow has come to life, and that he belongs to her. Her intensity is uncomfortable and slightly creepy (quite what Joseph is thinking getting tangled up with an unbalanced minor is anyone’s guess). Oh, and if you’re wondering why a retired judge would shelter an escaped convict, well, you’ll find the answer later on.

At times RAPTURE veers close to melodrama, but really that’s not surprising seeing as we’re often experiencing events through Agnes’ distorted lens. Marcel Grignon’s stunning cinematography is all swooping camera angles, while the overbearing landscape creates a sense of vertigo throwing the audience into the excesses of emotion and madness that colour this story. It’s an atmospheric and aesthetically lavish film that sucks you into its complex web of character relationships. And it’s something of a treat to see a young and surprisingly beautiful Dean Stockwell (great skin and cheekbones) as the object of a teenage girl’s fantasies.

Extras: An exclusive full length commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redmon gives a fascinating closer look, while a colour booklet is a desirable addition for any collector.

[usr=4] RAPTURE is available from Eureka!/Masters of Cinema on dual format DVD/Blu-ray from 28th July.