Malpertuis (1971)

 

"The Belgian Gormenghast?"

Radiance Films are releasing on Blu-ray, in a gorgeous limited edition complete with book and slipcase, a 4K restoration of director Harry Kumel's unique and haunting adaptation of Belgian writer Jean Ray's novel Malpertuis.

Jan (Mathieu Carrière) is a sailor, in port for just one night. Instead of wine, women and song he instead searches for the house of his birth, only to find it has been demolished and replaced with a shop. Pursuing a girl he thinks he recognises he ends up in the very place he had sought to avoid, and in that nightclub-cum-brothel he ends up in a fight that leaves him concussed.

When he wakes up he finds himself in the rotting, rambling surroundings of Malpertuis, owned by huge bedridden patriarch Cassavius (Orson Welles, only 56 at the time and not the first role he had played entirely from a bed - that was his own 1962 adaptation of Kafka's THE TRIAL). Jan meets his sister Nancy (Susan Hampshire in the first of five roles in this) and the motley assortment of eccentrics that populate the house, all of whom have gathered to witness the last wishes of Cassavius. He tells them they all inherit, but they have to stay at Malpertuis forever. As time goes on things get stranger until eventually Jan learns the secret of the house and also how he came to be there.

When MALPERTUIS was shown at Frightfest this year Harry Kumel was in attendance and was understandably a bit miffed that the programme notes gave away the ending. Certainly the film works better if you're not expecting the revelations that form the climax so avoid what other people have said about this if you can. Otherwise this is a rich gothic work and it's possible to see how it might have influenced similarly strange and eccentric movies from Mario Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973) to Vivian Stanshall's SIR HENRY AT RAWLINSON END (1980). Its pace is measured but that's because plot is far less important than the atmosphere of damp mouldering rot the film conjures, with the occasional (deliberate) flash of almost Powell and Pressburger beauty rendered all the more vivid by Randiance's 4K restoration.

Extras on the disc include a new Harry Kumel interview (by Anne Billson, 20 minutes) and Jonathan Rigby offering his thoughts on both the film and the source novel (26 minutes). He even mentions Jess Franco who had occurred to me while watching the film, too. There's a wealth of archival material from a 2005 release including a Kumel commentary (in English) with his first assistant director on the film, Francoise Levie, a making of with cast and crew members (37 minutes), a Susan Hampshire interview (12 minutes), a piece on Orson Welles' contribution (26 minutes) and a 1971 TV interview with Kumel.

There's eight minutes of ancient scratchy footage of Jean Ray himself talking about his writing style (he died in 1964) and five minutes of Harry Kumel at the film locations. You also get the 104 minute 'Cannes cut' of the film that Kumel has disowned although I did rather like the title sequence, as well as Kumel's 37 minute short film adaptation of Kafka's The Warden of the Tomb from 1965. Finally, the set comes with a beautifully produced 78 page book featuring new writing on the film from Lucas Balbo, David Flint and others. Here's a trailer for the set:

The 4K Restoration of Harry Kumel's MALPERTUIS is out on Blu-ray in a Limited Edition of 3000 on Monday 13th October 2025