IN THE SHADOW OF THE BLUE RASCAL @ Phantoscope

Ever since I began programming experimental film screenings in Cork 12 years ago, Pierre Clémenti's rare underground masterpiece In The Shadow Of The Blue Rascal has been the movie I've most wanted to show. It's finally happening Triskel Christchurch Cinema next week!

Pierre Clémenti’s reputation as an actor and icon of the rebellious creative spirit of late ‘60s France is legendary. The small but visionary series of experimental films that he directed deserve to be equally well known. Hallucinatory products of a drug drenched underground, these very personal works pulsate with a dark and heady lyricism that never fails to build to a remarkable pitch of intensity.

His feature In The Shadow Of The Blue Rascal is no exception. Made on a shoestring between 1978 and 1985, this nightmarish science fiction noir is strongly reminiscent of William Burroughs’ fiction. In an alternate version of the present, the authorities of Necrocity hand over police powers to a band of vile gangsters in order to repress a revolution. The story follows the ill-fated wanderings of a vicious killer until an unexpected shift in the narrative questions everything that has come before. Shot in distinctively garish colours, this trawl through the decadent psychic underbelly of a sick society is built on a spine of stark political anger.

Screening details: https://triskelartscentre.ie/events/155/in-the-shadow-of-the-blue-rascal/