La femme aux bottes rouges [The Woman with Red Boots] (1974)
(On Cable TV, November 2021) In watching a Buñuel movie, I expect weirdness, and weirdness is what I got with La femme aux bottes rouges — although I didn’t get the Buñuel I expected. Writer-director Juan Luis Buñuel is the son of Luis Buñuel, but you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell the difference considering how closely does this film seem to stem from the same place as Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie. Having the beautiful Catherine Deneuve in the lead reminds us of Belle de Jour, and the controlled surrealism of the film clearly owes much to Buñuel père. The story, as much as can be gathered without an explanatory guide, has to do with a young woman (Deneuve) being courted by an elderly rich gentleman (Fernando Rey, remarkable), leading to rifts with her current lover, lust from another man who ends up shooting his wife in a hunting accident, and artists gathering at a retreat. But that’s not the weird part yet, because our heroine is a woman with the power to change reality, to make others do her bidding and create passageways out of paintings. What’s rather charming in La femme aux bottes rouges as it flirts with fantasy is the decidedly low-tech approach to its magic: Things appear, disappear or change after editing cuts: a low budget, low-effort approach that does enhance the eeriness of the fantastic by leaving the magical unseen. It’s really up to the viewers to pay attention and realize unnatural changes even though there are no showy special effects calling attention to themselves. (Speaking of special effects, I had to laugh at one scene in which Deneuve’s character briefly reveals herself naked to the elderly gentleman — she’s wearing a “naked” flesh-coloured bodysuit, and not a subtle one at that.) As for the rest, well, weirdness abounds: Rey plays his mysterious character with quiet panache, while Deneuve remains enigmatic throughout. It’s a trip throughout art, dreams, semi-pretentious dialogue and people acting bizarrely. Frankly, it took me two attempts to get through La femme aux bottes rouges: I started the first attempt expecting something I could watch out of the corner of my eye and was mystified when the film resisted such a divided-attention approach: it worked much better when watched carefully, especially given what happens in between its cuts. It’s not necessarily recommended for everyone, but if you’re at the end of the Buñuel père’s filmography, consider this one a bonus.