Monsieur Hawarden

Summary

Self-taught film-maker Harry Kümel started his career as scriptwriter for Rik Kuypers and Herman Wuyts. He soon set out shooting films himself, short experimental films (Anna la bonne, after Jean Cocteau), fiction shorts (Tous les parfums de l'Arabie) and documentaries (Uit glas en staal).

A striking feature debut by the 28-year-old Kümel, this is an adaptation of the Flemish short story by Filip de Pillecyn and Henri Pierre Faffin's novel, both of which were inspired by an actual event that occurred in Malmédy in 1870. Jan Blokker's screenplay is a romantic adaptation of this mystery of a young Parisian noblewoman who goes on the run after committing a crime of passion and lives a life of exile in a remote village, disguised as a man.

Masterfully atmospheric, this film, with its carefully studied detail and delicate symbolism, focuses on the relationship between the mysterious and intriguing Hawarden and her maid Victorine. Kümel's elegant and highly suggestive psychological character study, which is full of ambiguous sexual implications, contains many reminders of Resnais, Dreyer, Bergman or Bresson.

This Freudian drama also excels through its magnificent landscape photography and its use of chiaroscuro. Kümel would have preferred to shoot the film in colour, but his budget (7 million Belgian francs, including a grant of 2.480.000 francs) did not stretch far enough. This Belgo-Dutch co-production dedicated to Josef von Sternberg was filmed in the area around Tongres, Spa and Malmédy. Due to difficulties with the distribution, the film was only released one year after completion.