Presented as a series of vignettes, 2023's
She is Conann, written and directed by
Bertrand Mandico, is supposedly a feminist take on
Conan The BarbarianI would beg to differ. The various segments of this French art house offering present Conann (
Con-ann, gettit?) at different stages of her life (
which, as far as I could tell, was the main similarity to Robert E Howard's stories of Conan The Barbarian), starting as a peasant girl captured by barbarians led by the red-haired Sanja (
also called Sonja), played by Julia Riedler.
Both Sanja and Conann turn out to be immortal - for no readily explained reason - but whereas Sanja is played by the same actress throughout her various appearances, Conann is portrayed by a succession of different actresses: Claire Duburcq at age 15, Christa Théret at age 25, Sandra Parfait at age 35, Agata Buzek at age 45, and Nathalie Richard at age 55.
Nearly always in her orbit is the dog-man Rainer (Elina Löwensohn), a cameraman documenting her life and narrating the movie. All very gender-fluid and meta, but ultimately sound and fury signifying nothing.
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| Rainer (Elina Löwensohn) |
Why is Rainer a dog-person? Who knows! However, I must admit that the make-up on Löwensohn (
and the other dog-people who pop up) is very impressive. My mind couldn't help wandering to the dog-people of Jeff Noon's excellent
Vurt books, and wondering why these had never been adapted to the big screen.
Perhaps
She is Conann is meant to be a commentary on the broader machismo and sleaze of many of barbarian movies of the 1980s? However, to my mind, any film that requires a crib sheet to fully grok is a huge red flag.
She is Conann begins in a sci-fi/fantasy world (
supposedly Sumeria, but you'd never know), with strong '80s-throwback, retro vibes (
accentuated by the fact that the entire film is shot on a series of soundstages with old school, direct-to-video, levels of set decoration).
The story soon jumps to a more contemporary period and all semblance of a sword-and-sorcery setting is forgotten (
bar the odd reference to "barbarism").
Every segment ends - segueing into the next - with the Conann of that period being slain by her next 'incarnation', until the final story when she has become a multimillionaire patron of arts and gives herself up to the artists she supports as an edible work of art.
The creators can only inherit Conann's limitless wealth if they totally consume her specially-prepared body.
The deliciously disturbing body horror sequence that follows is really the highlight of
She is Conann.
This being the most overt, and clear, segment of the movie, I'm pretty sure there was a clever metaphor about 'eating the rich' in there should you be inspired to look for it.
Shot primarily in black and white, but switching to colour every now and again,
She is Conann is also largely in French (
with subtitles) except for a segment set in '80s New York when the characters speak - and swear - in English.
Ultimately, the 105-minute movie is a stylish, but empty, mélange of assorted styles and ideas from far superior sources, the unique cinematic voices of Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman mixed with literary tropes from Michael Moorcock and William S Burroughs.
Oddly though, as infuriatingly incomprehensible as much of it is, the story flows and moves quickly, probably helped along by the comparatively short length of time spent on each period of Conann's life.
But that also means each iteration never hangs around long enough for us to truly understand her character at the moment in her life or her motivations.
Presumably every directorial and narrative choice in the film has been made for a reason, it's just unclear what those reasons were.
On paper Bertrand Mandico's recipe for reimagining
Conan The Barbarian should have created a perfect meal for this viewer, who usually has a lot of time for clever art films, but instead
She is Conann is disappointingly too pretentious for its own good.
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