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We are back to the earlier, slow direction. He slips u
I was emotionally drained by the film. I emerged into a Birmingham afternoon light, deeply affected by the closing scene and not thinking particularly of the earlier coincidences. The rage that had been in the hero as he rushed to find the lovers had seemed to grow in my own breast and it was a while before the shock passed. Eventually I remembered and was able to reflect upon the unca
When I arrived home that evening and related the events of my day, the film assumed more importance than the interview. Yvo
Loup-garou and the director's name, "Alain Legrand." She pointed out that loup-garou meant werewolf, which I had not registered at the time. "You've been watching horror movies then," she asked, and I had to agree that it was horrific.
Having unburdened myself to my wife, and, I am embarrassed to admit this, having cried while re-telling the story, I felt remarkably better, and with a little distance was able to be amused by the coincidences of the film. Perhaps I had made too much of them. As I lay in bed that night I told myself that if there was anything supernatural about the apparent coincidences, anything at all, then it was there to show me how lucky I was to have made my childhood sweetheart my wife. I looked at her as she slept beside me, at her tangled blond hair and fine skin, the shape of her nose and at her soft, parted lips. For the first time that day I thought of the hero as an actor rather than as myself, and I slept soundly.
I did not get the job when I was called back for the second interview, and in retrospect I am glad that I didn't. At the time I was disappointed, but my life carried on comfortably and provincially, and city life has never since appealed to me. On my return to Birmingham for the ill-fated second interview I looked in at the cinema but the film they were showing was apparently a Norwegian "comedy of ma
Almost immediately
Loup-garou became something of a joke amongst our friends. I had explained what had happened one evening to another couple at a di
For a while I bought a few books about werewolves, fiction and non-fiction, but it struck me that the power of the film didn't derive from the legends, but the way in which the film had been put together, and my fascination for the subject quickly waned. My interest in foreign cinema grew, though, along with my video collection, and soon I was quite knowledgeable on the subject of art-house European cinema. In my researches I found a reference to
Loup-garou in the biography of the director, Alain Legrand, which claimed that the film had never been distributed because it had fallen foul of the censors (because it appeared to condone under age sex). A few years later it appeared on the internet in a French language film database which claimed that not only had it never been distributed, but had never even been edited. These claims were repeated, word for word, on other databases, and although a large reference book on European cinema later corrected these errors, those entries remain unrevised on the internet. The reference book added that those critics that had seen Loup-garou reported that it contained some of the most beautiful, as well as some of the most amateurish camera-work they had seen. The only other reference that I discovered in the intervening years was on a "werewolf" website, where it was described as "disappointing," and "hardly to be described as a werewolf film at all." Nowhere could I find any reference to it being made available in any form. Without any hope of success I programmed the details into internet search-engines with no result, and left it as a permanent "want" on an auction site, which I refreshed every year without success.
And then only a couple of weeks ago I had an email notification that the film was being offered for auction. A private seller had a DVD to sell that he admitted was an unauthorised copy from an unreleased studio video. I didn't hesitate to put £50 on as my maximum bid, and despite there being no other apparent competition, with a day to go I raised it to £100. I watched the end of the auction on a Sunday evening, waiting for the flurry of last-minute bidding, but none came. I won the DVD for the minimum bid of £5.
It arrived in the post two days later, sent by a Frenchman living in London. There was no accompanying receipt and the DVD was blank, with no artwork. Yvo
I watched the film anyway. I knew that I'd be happy to see it again in a few days time when Yvo
In the quiet house I sat down before the television, and pressed "Play" on the remote control. The credits came up as they had done in the little cinema over fifteen years before. The picture jumped a couple of times at the begi
When the camera pa
The girl that appeared was certainly not the girl that I remembered. This actress had dark hair, and was slightly plump as opposed to the ski
As though wilfully ignoring my confusion the actress assumed the role as though it had always been hers.