Synopsis: 1. "Horror". A scientist discovers the substance responsible for the sex drive. He accidentally drinks it and as a result he turns into a maniac and horrible leperlike wounds appear in his skin, both conditions being contagious to the touch. 2. "Hero". Several persons are interviewed regarding a kid who killed his father and mysteriously disappeared. 3. "Homo". A man is sent first to a reformatory, later to prison, because of his thefts. The homosexual world of these microcosmos is depicted, with their own rules and power structures. This segment is based on Jean Genet; I don't know about the other two.
Appraisal: Three segments having apparently little in common; perhaps the underlying theme is the interplay of instinct and society, although the segment "Hero" doesn't fit so nicely in this description. In the black-and-white "Horror" the conventions of B-science-fiction films are adopted to explicitate the dichotomy between Eros and civilization, in a story which owes much to Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In "Homo", filled with pictorial and literary lyricism, environment shapes desire and identity, but there is still a division between group followers and individualists. "Hero", the most complex and ambiguous of the three stories, adopts an indirect approach where the only absent character is the protagonist himself. It's as if the main character is a perfect void, or a perfect mirror. It is a bit enigmatic, but there appears to be a thematic resemblance with the film La meilleure façon de marcher (1976).
Rating: 63
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