Hecate backdrop

Hecate 1982 Directed by Daniel Schmid Hécate

Words usually come too late

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.

Production Countries France , Switzerland
Language French
Spoken Language French
Release Date 22 October 1982
105 mins
Cast
Bernard Giraudeau Julien Rochelle
Lauren Hutton Clotilde
Jean Bouise le consul de France
Gérard Desarthe Le colonel de Watteville
Juliette Brac Miss Henry
Suzanne Thau La tenancière du bordel
Raja Reinking La fille du bar
Teco Celio Le capitaine Berta