BLACK MOON no stars

"Black Moon" was Louis Malle's first film in English; it wasn't successful and has been largely, and very rightly, forgotten. It's a dystopian, futuristic fantasy; a kind of dark "Alice in Wonderland", though this is a wonderland no-one would want to visit. Our heroine is a fresh-faced Cathryn Harrison, daughter of Noel and grand-daughter of Rex, making her way through a desolate landscape where men and women appear to be at war with each other, literally. She winds up in the house of Therese Giehse who lives with the seemingly eternally beautiful Joe Dallesandro, fresh from his stint with Warhol, and Alexandra Stewart, who was in "Le Feu Follet", (neither of them speak, which perhaps is for the best). It makes no sense, (I mean who is our 'Alice' and what is she doing here?). It's also pretty awful, a great director's misguided folly and Malle really must take the blame since he wrote it as well as directed it. The above-average photography is by Sven Nykvist. Oh, and did I mention the talking Unicorn and rat?