LEONOR (1975) Blu-ray
Director: Juan Luis Buñuel
Scorpion Releasing

Scorpion Releasing courts the arthouse crowed by way of the horror genre with their Blu-ray of Juan Luis Bunuel's LEONOR.

When his wife's ribcage is crushed in a riding accident, nobleman Richard (Michel Piccoli, BELLE DE JOUR) goes against the recommendations of his gardener and amateur herbalist Thomas (Antonio Ferrandis, TRISTANA) and lets a quack physician bleed her with the intention to perform surgery; however, Leonor (Liv Ullmann, PERSONA) dies before the operation. Richard has her placed in the crypt of a nearby monastery without the blessing of the chaplain and has the entrance quickly walled up. Not spending a moment on mourning, he goes to the father (Jorge Rigaud, HORROR EXPRESS) of young Catherine (Ornella Muti, OASIS OF FEAR) and asks for his permission to marry the girl. No sooner does he marry Catherine than he disappears for days, leaving her to wonder about the woman she is replacing and the memories enshrined in the castle. When Richard does return, it is with a renewed lust that produces his first son Mathieu and later Gregoire. The years go by, but a visit from his cousin Barnaby (José Guardiola, I HATE MY BODY) who brings news of the Black Death slowly spreading in their direction, conjures up haunting apparitions of a quietly reproachful Leonor that alienate him from Catherine who has come to resent Leonor to the point of forbidding the new chaplain (Angel del Pozzo, THE POSSESSED) from paying tribute on the anniversary of her death. Driven to distraction by a delayed sense of grief, Richard breaks into the crypt and watches over Leonor's tomb before meets a stranger (José María Prada, HOTEL OF FEAR) who tells him that he can help him bridge the gap between life and death but nevertheless warns him to let the dead rest. When Richard does not heed his warning, Leonor rises from her tomb not seeming to realize that ten years have passed. Returning to the castle, Richard learns from Catherine that the Black Death is getting closer. He orders her to leave the castle and take the children with her. When Catherine vanishes without a trace, Richard brings to the castle its new mistress, forbidding questions from the servants, even those who have been around long enough to recognize Leonor. Richard is worried about Leonor's fragility until she appears one day seemingly revitalized and as lusty as himself, not realizing that her life force comes at a terrible price as local children start to vanish and the locals believe the devil is in their midst.

Having already anticipated the cinematic fascination with "paranormal activity" in EXPULSION OF THE DEVIL and paid homage to the surrealism of his father in THE LADY IN RED BOOTS, Juan Luis Bunuel tries his hand a morbid medieval romance with LEONOR attributed to a novel by Ludwig Tieck – as scripted by Bunuel, Roberto Bodegas (PAPER HEART), and Bernardino Zapponi (DEEP RED) on Spanish prints while other prints attribute Bunuel regular Jean-Claude Carrière (THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING) and Clement Biddle Wood (BARBARELLA) – and the results are sadly uneven. Picoli, Ullmann, and Muti are dubbed in both Spanish and English soundtracks (Ullmann presumably so that her own accent in English would not clash with the rest of the dubbers) and the film is most successful in its combination of romanticism and the macabre when they are allowed to act without dialogue as captured in the authentic medieval locations in beautiful natural light and candlelight by cinematographer Luciano Tovoli a year before Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA (Tovoli is also assisted here by Roman Albani who would shoot Argento's INFERNO and PHENOMENA) and underscored by one of Ennio Morricone's most beautifully ethereal scores. While not technically a vampire film in spite of the description – she does not drain the blood of her victims, and the victimizing of children may be either a delusion of her own or just a divine means of punishing Richard – Ullmann's wraith unsettles not in her acts but in the uncertainty as to how aware she is of the monstrousness of her existence, and if her more sinister turn in the last third of the film is a reveal of a previous ruse or a brought about magically once Richard has become conscious to some of the horror around him. The film is told in a very elliptical fashion, eschewing moments of high drama for their quiet aftereffects, leaving the viewer to catch up to developments. For instance, we are unaware of the number of child disappearances until a scene in which a girl (Inma de Santis, THE KILLING OF THE DOLLS) is dragged to the stake to be executed as a witch. It is perhaps unnecessary for the viewer to get to know the character or see the initial accusation, or see any subterfuge on the part of Leonor or Richard (who are so wrapped up in one another as to perhaps not even be aware that the villagers have taken action) to feel the injustice of the girl's execution thanks to the ignorance of the chaplain and the villagers tying a powder keg to the girl's body with the lame excuse that the green wood does not burn as well. The film barrels along to it tragic climax and resolution with little engagement; however, the film is still immensely enjoyable on a formal level.

Released by New Line Cinema in a version running roughly fifteen minutes shorter with the title MISTRESS OF THE DEVIL, LEONOR did not find an audience with English-speakers theatrically or on the rare Magnetic Home Video cassette until later years when the film got a bit more exposure through a write-up in Phil Hardy's ENCYLOPEDIA OF THE HORROR MOVIES and its subsequent editions – couched amidst capsule reviews of films from the same year like EVIL OF DRACULA, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS, JAWS, THE DEVIL'S RAIN, and MARY MARY BLOODY MARY. The film remained largely unavailable on home video subsequently until a 2010 German anamorphic widescreen DVD and a later Italian DVD, neither of which were English-friendly. Scorpion's Blu-ray features 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC widescreen encodes of both the American cut (84:30) framed at 1.66:1 with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track, and the international cut (98:39) framed at 1.78:1 with a choice of Spanish or English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks and full English subtitles or subtitles for moments that were not dubbed into English. Both cuts are recent HD masters that look slightly different. The longer cut looks a shade darker in the shadows but the US cut is not significantly brighter, both preserving Tovoli's lighting and the rustic textures of the authentic Spanish locations. The 1.78:1 framing of the longer cut at first seems less arthouse than the 1.66:1, but it becomes less noticeable as one is drawn into the story and the sumptuousness of the visuals. The mono audio tracks are fairly clean, and convey Morricone's score in all its dark romanticism while the optional subtitles are free of any noticeable errors. Even with the longer cut viewed in English with full subtitles, one might not even register the few moments of Spanish dialogue.

Apart from trailers for CONDUCT UNBECOMING, CARAVAN TO VACCARES, BARBOSA, and THE SALAMANDER, the only extra is an audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth on the international cut. Besides the usual biographies, production dates, and release history – including New Line's attempts to pass it off as a more overtly horrific film – Howarth provides some background on the differences between the source novel and the film, the US and international cuts of the film, how Picoli's lead was an atypical role for him but his uncredited role as producer implied investment in the project beyond a hire job, and some thought-provoking point about Richard as a man of action and how his rash acts and decisions effect the story (providing an interesting contrast between the more introverted morbid protagonists of Poe adaptations like the similar stories of "Ligeia", "Morella", or "Berenice"). The cover is reversible. (Eric Cotenas)

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