The Most Assassinated Woman In The World

Maxa Head Wound

The Most Assassinated
Woman In The World
(aka La Femme La Plus
Assassinée Du Monde)
2018 USA Directed by Franck Ribière
Belgium/UK/USA
24th August screening at FrightFest 2018

I’ve talked about Paula Maxa on here before.

Almost two years ago I reviewed a really great book called Theatre of Fear & Horror: The Grisly Spectacle of the Grand Guignol of Paris, 1897-1962 (which can be found here) and buried somewhere in the middle of it I had this to say...

“... a particularly interesting performer called Paula Maxa who met with an unfortunate demise 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways on the stage of the theatre and was also the victim of a stage rapist attack at least 3,000 times. I would love to see a full biography of this lady emerge some day. As it is, the writer reprints, in a later section, a longish and autobiographical newspaper story of her early years from the time, although I can’t really hazard a guess as to the truth of the claims made by Maxa here. This amazing little article written in her own words certainly whets the appetite for more information about this sensationalist performer who seemed more than happy to play and wallow in the kind of unsavoury elements found in the plays in which she performed.”

Now, The Most Assassinated Woman In The World isn’t a biography of the actual person per se but it does use the memory of the real life person to unwind what is, in essence, a kind of giallo tinged thriller set on and around the stage at the famous Grand Guignol of Paris. A tale in which Paula Maxa, played with much screen presence by an actress called Anna Mouglalis, becomes the central figure, used by the writers and director to weave a tale which is much less about trying to explain the truth of this lady and more about using her legend to conjure up an atmosphere of the milieu in which she found herself.

And I can’t actually blame the writers for doing so, it has to be said.

My reason for this is because there seems to be very little known about the lady in question beyond her public facade. Or, more accurately, much known through her own efforts to promote herself which, as far as I could tell, amounts to obviously fake flights of fancy presented as fact, which I myself find less credible, even, than some of the stuff the great Salvador Dali used to claim about himself over the years. She doesn’t even have her own page on Wikipedia, just a brief mention on a page about the theatre most closely associated with her name, so I fear any attempts to research a proper biography of her will probably have found any trails leading to the person behind this theatrical icon have long grown cold (that being said, I think there may be a French language attempt at a biography but I can’t find an English translation to be able to read what it says about her).

But, as long as there are works which mention her or use her in such a way as she is used here, she isn’t going to be falling into complete obscurity just yet, I suspect.

Ribière’s film is impressive, opening with an old, often Victorian, horror trope of a lady walking down a dimly lit street on a night shrouded by fog, as she hears the clicking footsteps of someone following her through the lonely lane. The presence of such a well worn cliché is not so impressive but the flawless and entertaining execution of it here certainly is and, as the film wears on, we get embroiled in a series of real life murders taking place in the vicinity of the Grand Guignol and we follow the footsteps of a crime reporter called Jean, played by Niels Schneider, as he looks for a link between the murders of the grizzly spectacle of the theatre and tries to discover if the real Parisian murders are somehow linked or inspired by them. And, of course, he also becomes the love interest for Paula Maxa as he seeks an introduction to her and strikes up a relationship, of sorts, with her as the film plays on.

The film itself plays out as an elaborate set of tricks on the audience which are a direct parallel, in a way, to the trickery and sleight of hand effects which the Grand Guignol used on a nightly basis. As we are treated to re-enactments of a couple of the little vignettes (in style at the very least) which were so popular at the time, we are let in on the secrets of their execution while at the same time, the director tries and, sometimes, succeeds to use ‘similar in spirit’ cinematic tricks to wrong-foot the audience and pull them into the illusion which lies at the centre of the movie.

Now, I have to admit that, one of the first times he does this I was not that impressed. An early scene which presents itself at first as a flashback to a younger, long dead character in a mirror got my guard up almost instantly as I realised that the director was trying to use the mechanics of the old Groucho/Harpo mirror sequence from Duck Soup to surprise the audience and... sure enough, I was less than astonished. I think, perhaps, this was because the person in the foreground being reflected could not, exactly, match the movements of the person in the mirror. However, the director uses much of the trickery and deception throughout the movie with a defter hand and, although I would possibly condemn this in other films for being too obvious and condescending, I think they all get away with it here because the subject matter is so close to that kind of audience manipulation that it rings truer than it would in other movies. There’s a lovely shot, for instance, where Paula and Jean are laying upside down on a bed with their heads at 180 degrees from each other while the camera spins around slowly as they converse to keep them near the top or bottom of the frame. Which is okay and at first seems a little over contrived until the director pulls back the camera completely to reveal the artifice of the shot and you realise... yeah, contrived is definitely the word but, deliberately so.

There are also some nice scenes of murder and suspense where the film almost goes into 1970s giallo territory, with Keren Ann’s lovely score rising to the occasion in such moments to complete the illusion that we’ve just accidentally wandered into a Dario Argento or Sergio Martino movie. And, like these sequences, the film as a whole has a certain atmosphere which is never quite rendered fake to the central figure and doesn’t really ever get dull. It has a sense of verisimilitude which holds the narrative together even though, as you continue your journey through the film, the majority of said narrative is revealed to be so much smoke and mirrors, depending on your reading of the films final scenes.

I was perhaps a little disappointed with the aftermath of the denouement of a certain scene containing what is, for the movie, Paula Maxa’s last appearance at the Grand Guignol (although certainly not in real life, as the film-makers will tell you with a little summary at the end). I was pretty sure I knew where the narrative would be heading after the latest theatrical portrait of a ‘Maxa grizzly demise’ and, sure enough, it did exactly what I thought it would with the characters. Even so, the end is not so bad and certainly fits in with the way the rest of the story has been framed and presented. A particularly telling moment is in a mid-post-credits scene where a variation of the opening sequence is replayed and the audience are reminded of the danger of believing all that they see.

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World is a nicely presented, slick homage to both the ‘idea’ of Paula Maxa and the Grand Guignol where she flourished. Its an entertaining film and definitely worth a watch for lovers of the form and for those who want to catch up a little on the history of blood and gore which found its way into horror movies. There’s even a scene where Jean takes Paula to see the newly opened 1932 Fay Wray/Lionel Atwill two-strip technicolour movie Doctor X, which should bring a smile to the face of anyone familiar with these kinds of genre movies. This one gets a hearty recommendation from me and, if we are lucky enough in the UK to actually get this one either properly released in our cinemas or put out on a nice Blu Ray format disc, then this one is definitely worth a look, I would say.

So that was my first film of five in this weekend’s FrightFest and I will, hopefully, be publishing a few more reviews from the festival over the next week or so.


FrightFest 2018 @ NUTS4R2

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World

Luciferina

Hammer Horror - The Warner Brothers Years

Videoman (aka Videomannen)

Crystal Eyes (aka Mirada De Cristal)