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Morgiana



With delirious visuals conjured by cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera (Daisies) and often described as the 'last' film of the Czech New Wave, Juraj Herz's delirious tale of terror is a fantastical and surreal phantasmagoria of dark desires and splintered minds – a twisted Czech take on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Poe's The Black Cat.

Based on a short story by Aleksandr Grin, (the 'Russian Poe'), Morgiana is the story of twin sisters, Klára and Viktoria who live a life of decadent opulence, somewhere in the late 19th century. Klára is auburn-haired and beautiful, whilst Viktoria is wicked, sadistic, bursting with hate and jealousy - and who hatches a terrible revenge by slowly poisoning her more popular sister. As the poison takes hold, Klára begins to lose grip on her sanity...

Part fairy-tale, part Gothic horror, Morgiana is a full-blown hallucinatory experience from the director of the chilling The Cremator.

Special Features

• Newly filmed interview with director Juraj Herz.
• New digital transfer with restored picture and sound.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• Booklet featuring essays by Dr Ian Conrich and Daniel Bird.
• Optimal quality dual-layer disc.
• Available for the first time on DVD in the English speaking world.

souvenir wrote:Pre-order up at HMV.

One of the more enjoyable imdb reviews you'll ever read:
Juraj Herz's 1971 Morgiana is less Carroll-gone-softcore than Edward Gorey as filmed by Ken Russell-a sardonic chunk of Victorian penny-dreadful melodrama tweaked to new levels of aesthetic and emotional hysteria. Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed. The women here are painted as elaborately as psychedelic-drag-queen Cockettes, and the purple extremity of their predicament is drawn in equally bizarre/extravagant terms. It's like a dress-up, younger-generation version of Baby Jane?, set in an ornamental snow globe.

Actually I'd almost swear our own Zazou dlM penned that.

Well I for one am sold.

Can't wait for this. Love Herz.

I've only seen it without subtitles, but that IMDB review seems pretty spot on.

Looks like another winner from SR. I'm sold as well.

This review is pretty good, too. (Here's a short summary from Mubi.) I loved Cremator so I have to see Morgiana. Try a search for Morgiana on Google images for some interesting stills and posters. Or video excerpts.

I have seen Morgiana. It's a great film, gorgeous baroque asethetic, highly weird.

Wow, looking at that intro and one of the other clips on youtube I know I have to get this. Totally wierd and I love it!

cover:
Just to double check this will be R0, correct?

I'd be surprised if this one was region-coded: I don't think any of Second Run's other Czech discs are, and there's nothing contractually special about this title that I'm aware of.

It'll be PAL, though, obviously.

Oh, obviously PAL, but until I buy that all region player even for SR (which I think has all of two R2s) I'll be neurotic.

I bought a region-free player (pretty cheap nowadays) just to get access to Second Run, and am very glad I did.

I'm looking forward to seeing this film.

Absolutely gorgeous artwork, a blind-buy for me based on what I've seen and heard.

Yes, definitely Region 0.

The disc will also now include a new filmed interview director Juraj Herz - which we're really pleased with.
However, because the interview came in so late we had to hold up production to accomodate it. As a result the release date has now moved back to October 11.

Framegrabs really don't do this film justice!

Anyway, I now have a final release version, and it would appear to be from the same source as the Czech DVD reviewed here... but with the major difference that the bitrate has been massively increased, so that the blocky artefacting that was complained about isn't an issue any more.

So, how's the movie? I was intrigued by the description, but an available YouTube clip made the film seem like 1,000 other Eurohorror films of the sort that have Barbara Steele creeping around a castle.

I haven't seen 1000 Eurohorror films to compare, but I'd definitely recommend this film. Underneath all the effectively zany camerawork, there's a pretty psychologically disturbing story about the ties that bind that might bear comparison with something like Sisters or Dead Ringers, with some nice twists and turns along the way. Also, there are kittens.

One of the reviews linked to above felt the ending was terrible. For those who've seen it, would you agree that the ending is an issue?

Matt wrote:So, how's the movie? I was intrigued by the description, but an available YouTube clip made the film seem like 1,000 other Eurohorror films of the sort that have Barbara Steele creeping around a castle.

I don't see it as a horror film so much as a psychedelic series of variations on a 1940s Gainsborough melodrama, only with the same actress playing both the Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood roles.

Full details now up at our website

AnOther.

Time Out/David Jenkins have given Morgiana a great 4**** review in this week's issue.