Imagine a life where your art is the daily endeavour of creating your own death in the most exquisitely horrific manner possible. This was the pact of Paula Maxan, the stage name of Marie-Therese Beau and the real-life star of the French Grand Guignol theatre. She inspires director Franck Ribiere’s poetic partial biopic, The Most Assassinated Woman In The World. Mixing a documentary quality with an expressive mood that demands witness, it flicks between the blooded playhouse boards and a side story of the actors and crew who work it, finding both their lives and livelihoods threatened by the coming of cinema and a more mysterious killer.
Anna Mouglalis (Kiss Of The Damned) stars as Paula, the woman whose composition of sensuous mime and powdered speech connect with her audiences as, night after night, they see her stabbed, burned, beheaded and mutilated for their (but also her) beautification. Mouglalis is wonderful in the role, combining a willingness to engage in the mental marionetting that makes her one second a business woman just doing her job and the next a patient engaged in one long drama-as-therapy session as she tries to cover her tracks. Additionally, Niels Schneider (as Jean) combines enough knowledge of the sleazy hackery demanded of him as a rookie journalist with maintaining an almost secret idealism in that twitch of his moustache that you root for him regardless. It is pretty vital considering there is a real killer dans le rues. Elsewhere, while all of the staff of the theatre are hard nosed, none of them fall into crude stereotypes once the greasepaint is removed. The rest of the cast lends similar support.
For lovers of technique, it is a banquet. The theatre’s gore effects are lovingly deconstructed then demonstrated in a manner that increases appreciation for their science and, importantly, the human genius that sparks the connection alive. Similarly, the lighting is as atmospheric as you could want, with the cobbled streets of Paris a dangerous and tantalising place where the well-heeled will happily have their evening dress spotted with grue to add a little frisson, and danger offers performers the chance to see if some higher human understanding can be reached. This is, however, also where the film’s main concern lies: it falls in love with its own vision rather too much. While utterly understandable, it does mean the middle section of the narrative drags endlessly and risks the audience losing sight of the beauty of the composition simply because it becomes over-exposed. This also rather meddles with the tension for which the Grand Guignol was itself famous.
The true beauty of The Most Assassinated Woman In The World, however, is its arc. Rather than bequeathing dry instruction on performance history, the wraparound story uses era-specific storytelling techniques to ensure the audience is in on the secret and yet can mull its central mystery beyond the confines of the celluloid. That magic means the medium will live on regardless.
THE MOST ASSASSINATED WOMAN IN THE WORLD / DIRECTOR: LAURENT BARES / SCREENPLAY: JAMES CHARKOW, DAVID MURDOCH, FRANCK RIBIERE, VERANE FREDIANI / STARRING: ANNA MOUGLALIS, NIELS SCHNEIDER, LEAN-MICHEL BALTHAZAR, JULIE RECOING / CERT: 18 / RELEASE DATE: TBC
