Hécate (1982)

Drama Romance

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.

Updated May 20 2020

Releases:

US -

1983-11-15

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Keywords:

africa sex based on novel or book nationalism magic colony diplomat french war goddess european mysterious

FACTS

Runtime: 105 mins Rating: 6.0 Tag Line: Words usually come too late

Cast

Bernard Giraudeau

Julien Rochelle

Jean Bouise

le consul de France

Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Massard

Gérard Desarthe

Le colonel de Watteville

Lauren Hutton

Clotilde

Rose-Marie Schneider

Teco Celio

Le capitaine Berta

Juliette Brac

Miss Henry