Régime sans pain (1985)

From https://www.scaruffi.com/director/ruiz/ruiz117.jpg

Director: Raul Ruiz

Screenplay: Raul Ruiz

Cast: Anne Alvaro as Alouette; Olivier Angèle as Jason/William III; Gérard Maimone as Professeur Pie

Synopsis: In a dystopian future, the former leader of the surviving world named William III (Olivier Angèle) has his memory wiped. Convinced by a female fan of the former leader named Alouette  (Anne Alvaro) to reconsider this decision however, she and the scientist behind the wipe named Professeur Pie (Gérard Maimone) train him to join the contest to become William IV and lead the world again.

Even for Raul Ruiz's career, Régime sans pain is weird; it was originally a planned music video for French musical duo Angel & Maimone that became this feature. Whether the case or not, it feels like Ruiz shot a whole batch of music videos for the duo which were linked together into a feature: one where the political power is won by a popularity contest, the Church teaches the sacred song but only allows parrots in the convert nowadays, and part of William III's phoenix like resurrection into William IV involving finding the right clothes, even if it's on a dying man in a burning car.

From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZKrDgJ3Dcxs/hqdefault.jpg

Régime sans pain is definitely a wacky production from Ruiz, more significantly as this is knee deep into the eighties, his mere eclectic and vibrant period between countries, projects and formats at their most extreme. This is certainly, out of those I've seen, of its era in a good way as he embraced Angel & Maimone's synth songs and a lo-fi futuristic aesthetic. This is, openly rather than implied, the only sci-fi film in Ruiz's career too, a perplexing world which is a subdued and almost ramshackle universe, between the desolate urban streets and the powerful high class elite, is contrasted by Ruiz openly embracing a pop art absurdity that even Lady Gaga's music videos seem conventional in comparison. There's an idea which thankfully keeps it all tied together well as an extended music video and a fully fledged film - that William III has every part of him wiped away (even his in-head credit cards) only to be offered a chance to become a new man, the next ruler William IV, a contest where he must become popular to the people by being less an active figure head but an idol, hence why finding his singing voice again is an excuse to use Olivier Angèle's singing but is written with having a purpose.

And when allowed to use the dreamlike logic of music videos, Ruiz gets incredibly strange, the dialogue becoming increasingly blurred in the illogical whilst the emphasis on stark colour aesthetic from his other eighties productions stands out more here due to its originals. Even as Gérard Maimone gets into a fencing duel with a morgue coroner over a dead man's clothes, this fits into the Ruzian patchwork of before and after in the director's career, the only distinction being Ruiz's most time stamped fit, not a bad thing if you want to have eighties aesthetic stretched and bent under the Chilean director's camera. Also as a tale of a figure becoming a new man, Olivier Angèle playing the naive yet charismatic blank to be rebuilt, scenes merely take ideas Ruiz would've had in another context but filtered through science fiction here, like a brothel where the female sex workers (rather than ghosts in another of his films) are holograms. It even hits an emotional point as, becoming a man again, William takes a decision which squanders his chances but is the more altruistic path, even if it doesn't conclude as such in an ironically convoluted way.

From https://www.scaruffi.com/director/ruiz/ruiz118.jpg

And the music itself, the music video sequences themselves, are interesting: good music but appropriately batty in what you witness visually, especially the extended scene in a building part of the hospital where you can claim the clothing of the dead as your own, Angèle going through clothes taken from the recently deceased in a blackened space choked in racks. The music itself is appropriate for Ruiz's world as, whilst Angel & Maimone's work is a laid back synth pop, Olivier Angèle's own use of English and French is apt for a filmmaker who confuses and obscures, his co-opting of a somewhat artsy and obscurer musical duo, clearly willing to be involved, feeling like a very clever decision on Ruiz's part. That and Angèle's partner in crime Gérard Maimone being a very cinematic actor in his own right in beard and with his deep voice. Together, they have arguably the best of results to their advantage too as, whilst I unfortunately never knew of them until seeing this film, they do come off as an interesting musical duo whose willingness to be in this production by a legendary cultish director gives them a lot of respect in itself.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Eighties/Music Video Logic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Even a 'minor' Raul Ruiz production like this is one to peak your attention. The eighties was a very productive and eclectic era where he worked on a dance/ballet film (Mammame (1986)) to a TV mini-series (Manoel on the Island of Marvels (1985)), so a music video that became a picture was an apt investment. It's a unique piece in his career - his sole hardcore sci-fi tale - and definitely as mad as a box of frogs just from what I have described. It's also absolutely worth being preserved and restored again, especially as whilst a dreamy VHS rip with Japanese hard copy subtitles suits the strangeness, Ruiz's rich aesthetic style even on a low budget deserves a clearer image, ever a director undermined by the prolific nature of his career and how obscurity and copyright is inevitably going to be a pain to see a film like Régime sans pain (1985) as intended.

From https://www.scaruffi.com/director/ruiz/ruiz124.jpg