Rent The Ordeal (2004)

The Ordeal - The Ordeal review by CP Customer

This film was extremly slow paced but kept your attention all the way through. It was a good movie with a poor ending. My partner and I both agreed if the ending had been stronger this would have been a great film.

Harrowing - spoilers. - The Ordeal review by NP

I was initially attracted to this French film because of the highly-billed inclusion of Brigitte Lahaie. Sadly, however, she’s barely in it, and plays an entirely peripheral character. With that disappointment out of the way, there is a huge amount to enjoy here – however, I think ‘The Ordeal’ is something of an acquired taste.

Travelling cabaret singer Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas) becomes stranded in the formidable, rolling forests of the Ardennes, but Mr Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), a kindly inn-keeper offers not only to put him up for the night but to fix his van the following morning. Also along the way, Stevens comes into contact with the distracted Boris (Jean-Luc Couchard ), who is dejectedly looking for his dog, lost in the snow. That Boris then turns up at the inn, and is clearly a good friend of Bartel, doesn’t bode well: one would hope Boris’s broken mind is a lone malady that separates him from the nearby villagers – in fact, the whole community is similarly unstable.

Quite why this should be is never explained: it just is. Why the village is allowed to operate in the way it does without interference from the law is equally unfathomable. But if you don’t mind the lack of explanations, this is an enjoyably hellish ride. Poor Stevens makes every attempt to reason with and placate those who wish him harm, and also carries out valiant escape attempts – but things continue not to look good for him.

This reminds me of a ‘straight’ version of quirky UK dark comedy ‘The League of Gentlemen’, and shares with it a nightmarish environment – but there are no laughs here. The endless surrounding area could not be more isolated, with the punishing weather only compounding that. Bartel’s compulsion to turn his guest into his dead wife Gloria is carried out in a surprisingly nasty way, and that fact that the villagers share his wishes give the viewer the overwhelming idea that things are going to turn very nasty for Stevens. And they do.