La Marge – Radiance

Director: Walerian Borowczyk
Screenplay: Walerian Borowczyk
Starring: Sylvia Kristel, Joe Dallesdandro
Country: France
Running Time: 86 minutes
Year: 1976
BBFC Certificate: 18

 

 

 

 

Challenging, formidable, and transgressive, for thirty years the cinematic works of Walerian Borowczyk decisively blurred the boundaries of taste and subject matter. First as one of the most rigorously conceptual animation specialists of the 1960s (a clear influence of the early work of Terry Gilliam), and then later as a rule-breaking director of feature length films that scandalised audiences around the world, his oeuvre occupies between, as one contributor to the special features puts it, ‘between the arthouse and the grindhouse’, without ever truly being defined by either of those aesthetic spaces.

Adapted from a prize-winning novel by the French author André Pieyre de Mandiargues, La Marge (The Margin) concerns Sigismond (Joe Dallesandro) whom we first encounter enjoying an intimate experience with his wife Sergine (Mireille Audibert), before being called away to Paris on a business trip. There we see him become involved with a sex worker named Diana (Sylvia Kristel) before a letter arrives from home with unexpected news. From this deceptively slim premise, Borowczyk mines a seam of untrammelled desire and emotional anguish, enhanced greatly by the inspired casting of Joe Dallesandro and Sylvia Kristel. By the mid-1970s, both were cultural icons in their own right, with notoriety and charisma to burn: Dallesandro from his time at Andy Warhol’s Factory and his appearances in films like Flesh, and Kristel from her starring role in the erotic film Emmanuelle. Their presence in these roles imbues the film with a sensory, visceral charge that no other actors from that era could have conveyed.

La Marge presents us with several competing layers of emotional contradiction, where a man can vow to never betray his wife and then pay for sex; where women must evade the law whilst clients swarm around them, and where alarmingly young girls willingly venture into sex work. Despite the chilly urban setting, everything here is elevated to a dream-like level. Sigismond pursues his relationship with Diana as if trapped in an erotic fugue state; the infernal red walls of the hotel room where they meet only adds to the hellish atmosphere. The film is an unapologetic exploration of human sexuality, where desire draws people to each other despite the very obvious consequences for both. With everything that has happened to cinema in terms of explicit content, La Marge could appear rather mild in this day and age. However, Borowczyk emphasizes the emotional sincerity of Sigismond and Diana’s physical encounters. I have seen the trope where a sex worker clutches her money during sex many times in both film and TV dramas before, but no one has ever done it with more devastating impact than Sylvia Kristel does in her scenes with Dallesandro. Her haunted expression is truly upsetting – and you will never hear I’m Not in Love by 10cc in the same way ever again.

Both lead actors are exceptional in their respective lead roles. Dallesandro’s taut physicality and effortless cool are perfect for the part of Sigismond, and Kristel conveys both the outward strengths and inner frailties of Diana with aplomb. Without them, the film’s manifest ambiguities would completely fall apart. Watching La Marge for the first time is to be plunged into a netherworld where nothing exists except the present moment. The film’s final moments powerfully reinforce the vast contrast between extreme experiences. It is unlike anything I have seen this year, haunting and troubling in equal measure.

4K UHD & BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

• 4K restoration by Studio Canal
• 4K UHD SDR and Blu-ray presentation of the feature
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio with French and English audio options
• Director’s cut (Blu-ray only, exclusive to this edition)
• New visual essay by critic and author Samm Deighan (2026, 15 mins)
• New appreciation by director and cinematographer Sean Price Williams (2026, 15 mins)
• Brief von Paris – commissioned by German broadcaster ZDF, this 16mm short film by Borowczyk was shot in the French capital during the release of La marge (1976, 40 mins)
• Diana from Amsterdam – this behind-the-scenes footage on the set of La marge, shot on 8mm by camera operator Noël Véry, is narrated by star Sylvia Kristel (6 mins)
• Interview with La marge camera operator Noël Véry and assistant director André Heinrich (2007, 4 mins)
• Interview with film critic and Borowczyk collaborator Noël Simsolo (2014, 8 mins)
• Alternate scenes from the UK version ‘The Streetwalker’ (11 mins)
• Image gallery
• Newly improved English subtitle translation
• Reversible sleeve featuring artwork based on original promotional materials
  Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by film critic David Jenkins
• Limited Edition of 5,000 copies presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

This limited edition 4K and blu ray release contains a wealth of superb special features, none more so than the inclusion of a director’s cut of La Marge, available only on the blu ray disc. This cut is five minutes longer and adds several elements to certain established scenes, such as one where Diana is assaulted by her pimp and notably alters some of the musical cues. The decisive changes are the scenes where we see Sigismond with the letter as he stares into a vast construction site in the middle of Paris, and a last scene with Diana which for me completely alter the ambiguous atmosphere and dissipate the level of foreshadowing that distinguishes the earlier cut of the film.

Samm Deighan’s essay is a tremendous investigation of the various influences on La Marge, from late 60s surrealism to the philosophical work of George Bataille, especially his book Erotism: Death and Sensuality, as well as the major differences between the published book and the completed film. They bear very little relation to each other, which is interesting in and of itself. André Pieyre de Mandiargues would remain a frequent collaborator with Borowczyk until his death in 1991.

Sean Price Williams’ appreciation of La Marge is one of the most heartfelt and personal reflections on a film that I have ever come across. He coins a startling phrase when he describes La Marge as a film concerned with ‘the horniness of grief’. That is certainly one way to look at it, and is by no means an inaccurate one. He also speaks eloquently about the barriers and value judgements that can still prevent people from even considering a film like La Marge worthy of any critical respect. At one point Williams phones up Joe Dallesandro himself to ask him about a particular scene in the film, which is another unexpected highlight of the special features.

Brief from Paris is a diverting short film made by Borowczyk around the same time as La Marge, constructed from various shots of busy Parisian streets and soundtracked by the ever-present roar of traffic. It is a fascinating period piece of documentary non-reportage. Diana from Amsterdam is a short but lovely film comprised of onset footage from the production of La Marge accompanied by a wistful narration by Sylvia Kristel herself.

The interviews with various collaborators with Borowczyk all attest to the director’s general unhappiness and issues with the film. Noël Véry and André Heinrich discuss how the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco prevented the film from being shot in Barcelona, and Noël Simsolo, who has a small role in La Marge speaks rather ruefully about his friend’s fraught life at that time.

The alternate scenes from the UK version of the film are a window onto a world of British prurience and censorship, with a scratchy title card and small variations of camera placement that clearly show that Borowczyk filmed several takes of each scene, knowing full well that it would never pass uncut in this country.

The image gallery is full of amazing promotional material, especially an amazing series of posters from Japan and some intriguing VHS artwork from various countries.

The booklet accompanying this limited edition 4K and blu ray release was sadly not available for me to review.