Hecate

Story

Synopsis

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.

Director

Daniel Schmid

Writers

Daniel Schmid, Paul Morand, Pascal Jardin

Language

French

Country

Switzerland, France

Release date

22 October 1982

Ensemble

Cast

• 

  Bernard Giraudeau

  Julien Rochelle

• 

  Lauren Hutton

  Clotilde

• 

  Jean Bouise

  le consul de France

• 

  Jean-Pierre Kalfon

  Massard

• 

  Gérard Desarthe

  Le colonel de Watteville

• Juliette Brac

  Miss Henry

• Patrick Thursfield

  L'Anglais

• Suzanne Thau

  La tenancière du bordel

• Raja Reinking

  La fille du bar

• Mustapha Tsouli

  Ibrahim

• 

  Teco Celio

  Le capitaine Berta

• 

  Rose-Marie Schneider