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French cinema has never addressed
the ‘fantasy and monster’ sub-genre as well as the ‘superhero’ movie.
Now it is done with Bloody Mallory!
Bloody Mallory could
be first described as a ‘Buffy-meets-Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom’ movie: a kick-ass heroine hunting down a demonic cult in
subterranean territories… With attitude…
As far as I remember, I’ve always been
in love with super-heroines. My previous film, ‘Chastity Blade’, was
about a pulp novel heroine coming to life in 1930’s Paris. Bloody
Mallory further explores that theme of having a strong sexy heroine
living these incredibly dangerous adventures in a surreal, stylised
world.
The emphasize is on
the female aspect of Mallory’s team. Male characters such as Inspector
Durand or Father Carras will come and go. They’re not the core of
the team. Just like James Bond girls, they are interchangeable, expendable.
These women stand up for each other and don’t need any men to rescue
them from dangerous situations. Oh no no no…
The visual style of
the movie is very much inspired by Manga cartoons from Japan. The
story will almost entirely take place during night-time, in artificial
lights, drawing on hyper-saturated, flashy colors. Each character
has only one or two color patterns – Blue and purple for Vena, red
and black for Mallory, Burgundy and gold for Lady Valentine…Each character
has highly stylised hairstyle and most of the actors are to wear special
colored contact lenses in order to match their specific look. Costumes
are almost used like a set; helping to take the audience into another
world. No one is wearing anything but futuristic-stylized outfits.
As in mangas or marvel
comics, each costume is filled with high-tech equipment – Vena Cava’s
plateau shoes hide double-barrel machine guns – her lipstick can launch
rockets... Mallory’s belt morphs into many different weapons, including
a holy-water -spraying crucifix…
I have also drawn upon several Manga
stylistic effects in my mise-en-scène, such as portraits of characters
masked with razor-sharp shadows, and angles from my favourite comic
book artists. A heavy techno soundtrack will blend perfectly well
with this type of visuals.
The story is filled
with various monsters. Our heroines are pitted against all sorts of
legendary creatures: ghouls, vampires, succubus, zombies and werewolves,
which I wanted to portray in a more playful way than usual. Lady Valentine
and Morphine hate each other’s guts, for instance… Each of them has
specific powers and abilities – Vampires can’t die; succubus can take
on the appearance of anyone else; ghouls have these stretchy, disgusting
tongue… Just to keep our heroines busy…
(all amazing photos
by Thibault GRABHERR)
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