What a movie! Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne is a strange and intense experience, that still holds shock value and artistic quality today, 30+ years later. This is how Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was intended to be. The story is a bit different than the novel, in that Borowczyk added Fanny Osbourne, writer Robert Louis Stevenson's real life wife, into the movie. However, it feels completely natural, and the way things are presented to us are quite original, unique, and at times, horrifying. The film itself is on the extreme side of things; it is not for the conservative. Violence, sex, nudity, sexual violence, and aberrant behavior abound.
We all know the story of Jekyll and Hyde, so I won't go into it, but where this marvelous adaptation really excels is in its atmosphere and strong references to man's evil within himself. Jekyll seems a decent man, but as Hyde is a more dominant persona, unaware and uncaring of any societal rules and regulations, he makes wild and corrupt choices without feeling anything but the deliciously wicked sense of pure animalistic freedom. That very feeling of chaos consumes Jekyll until there is no way for him to turn back. Miss Fanny Osbourne loves her fiancé Jekyll so much, that she is willing to give up being a law abiding, good citizen to join Hyde in a life of anarchy and destruction, a much freer and enjoyable existence. The things people do for love...
The cinematography is outstanding, really and truly. It has a very soft, gauzy haze to it, almost like its misty or smoky. The house it was filmed in is very striking, and feels like a maze almost, with its closed rooms, tall staircases, and winding passages that seem to lead everywhere and no where. The music is jarring and startling, but appropriately. Acting is good all around. The real star of this picture, though, is the atmosphere. It's other-worldly!
Borowczyk was known for his highly sexual and bizarre films, and this surely ranks as one of his most developed, fully realized movies. The symbolism of man's dark half inside everyone, waiting to come out at the right time, with the right person, is there and true about all of us.
I recommend this film highly if you can handle extreme content.
We all know the story of Jekyll and Hyde, so I won't go into it, but where this marvelous adaptation really excels is in its atmosphere and strong references to man's evil within himself. Jekyll seems a decent man, but as Hyde is a more dominant persona, unaware and uncaring of any societal rules and regulations, he makes wild and corrupt choices without feeling anything but the deliciously wicked sense of pure animalistic freedom. That very feeling of chaos consumes Jekyll until there is no way for him to turn back. Miss Fanny Osbourne loves her fiancé Jekyll so much, that she is willing to give up being a law abiding, good citizen to join Hyde in a life of anarchy and destruction, a much freer and enjoyable existence. The things people do for love...
The cinematography is outstanding, really and truly. It has a very soft, gauzy haze to it, almost like its misty or smoky. The house it was filmed in is very striking, and feels like a maze almost, with its closed rooms, tall staircases, and winding passages that seem to lead everywhere and no where. The music is jarring and startling, but appropriately. Acting is good all around. The real star of this picture, though, is the atmosphere. It's other-worldly!
Borowczyk was known for his highly sexual and bizarre films, and this surely ranks as one of his most developed, fully realized movies. The symbolism of man's dark half inside everyone, waiting to come out at the right time, with the right person, is there and true about all of us.
I recommend this film highly if you can handle extreme content.