Liberté | Little White Lies

Lib­erté

04 Dec 2020 / Released: 04 Dec 2020

Words by David Jenkins

Directed by Albert Serra

Starring Helmut Berger, Iliana Zabeth, and Marc Susini

Ornately decorated coach interior with two individuals, one wearing a dark cloak and the other a gold-coloured robe, seated together.
Ornately decorated coach interior with two individuals, one wearing a dark cloak and the other a gold-coloured robe, seated together.
4

Anticipation.

Bombed at Cannes, but that’s its own strange endorsement.

4

Enjoyment.

Beguiling treatise on voyeurism and revolution. More to it than just costumed dogging.

4

In Retrospect.

An exceptional, completely unique film, though like public orgies, definitely not for everyone.

A group of exiled lib­ertines engage in a moon­lit orgy in direc­tor Albert Serra’s puck­ish his­tor­i­cal romp.

Describ­ing a film that, from the out­set, doesn’t appear to be a com­e­dy, as a com­e­dy, is a method some­times used by crit­ics as a form of deflec­tion. Com­e­dy tends to be pri­mal and instinc­tu­al, maybe even a bit throw­away, and so to use it as a descrip­tor in this way serves to elim­i­nate both a film’s com­plex­i­ties and your own need to take that film at its pur­port­ed face value.

To give an exam­ple, in 1997, at a screen­ing of William Friedkin’s The Exor­cist, most of the patrons chose to laugh their way through some of the film’s most gru­elling sequences, using com­e­dy as a way to off­set the poten­tial for trauma.

Albert Serra’s Lib­erté was wide­ly lam­bast­ed when it screened at the 2019 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val for its extend­ed dura­tion and lack of a sto­ry­line, as it pre­sent­ed a fleshy coterie of bewigged 18th-cen­tu­ry French dandies skulk­ing around a moon­lit wood­land clear­ing while engag­ing in all man­ner of erot­ic tom­fool­ery. Hav­ing been eject­ed from the court of King Louis XVI for their foul predilec­tions, this clan­des­tine col­lec­tive decide instead to enact their own pri­vate rev­o­lu­tion – just ahead of the one on the hori­zon that result­ed in the king’s sud­den head loss via guillotine.

About an hour in, it seems clear that Ser­ra is jok­ing with his audi­ence, plac­ing us in the uncom­fort­able posi­tion of being unwill­ing voyeurs (among oth­ers on screen with frilly blousons and handy tele­scopes) to these minia­ture episodes of unbri­dled lib­er­tin­ism. But then maybe it’s not so uncom­fort­able, as isn’t this what film watch­ing is all about? That is, being asked to observe peo­ple from a safe dis­tance while they syn­the­sise and offload naked emo­tions for the cam­era. Is all cin­emago­ing not just tac­it par­tic­i­pa­tion in a scrub­land orgy?

If you think about it, that’s pret­ty fun­ny. There’s a sequence in which one noble­man is being repeat­ed­ly caned on his der­rière while anoth­er man watch­es excit­ed­ly, and it goes on for so long that you pass through the look­ing glass of pure hor­ror and into the realms of absur­dist com­e­dy. Each scream trans­lates as an equal fusion of plea­sure and pain. But which side to fall on?

Lib­erté is not a com­e­dy that evokes bel­ly laugh­ter, but one that elic­its coiled amuse­ment at the idea of the micro­dra­mas that arise from such a sit­u­a­tion. Ser­ra man­aged a sim­i­lar tonal bal­anc­ing act in his pre­vi­ous film, The Death of Louis XIV, in which it was hard not to tit­ter as fuss­bud­get retain­ers attempt to pro­long the life of a des­ic­cat­ing regent played with dead­pan aplomb by Jean-Pierre Léaud. Here though, roles are enforced, cou­plings are sug­gest­ed and then sud­den­ly reneged upon, com­plete sex­u­al equal­i­ty appears to be the rules of the game, though clear class struc­tures remain.

It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing, unique and affir­ma­tive film about the rev­o­lu­tion­ary act of self-expres­sion, and the con­nec­tion between back­room intel­lec­tu­al inquiry and broad pub­lic think­ing. Ser­ra and DoP Artur Tort film the vignettes in a man­ner which negates any eroti­cism, as they are instead inter­est­ed in the logis­tics, the process and the unspo­ken trans­ac­tions that are made between these con­sent­ing adults. It’s a film which could arouse out­rage, or bore­dom, or even a strange kind of mirth, and as such it feels as if Ser­ra may have end­ed up mak­ing one of the sem­i­nal mid­night movies.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.