Film Comment: Island of Despair

Godard, Rohmer, Truffaut, Chabrol, Almodovar, Oshima, Fellini, Rossellini, Bergman, Curtiz, Hitchcock, Frankenheimer, Chaplin, Ozu, Welles, Mizoguchi, Zefirelli, Polanski, Ford, Capra, Scorsese, Penn, Malle, Wilder, Allen, Burton, Cameron, Bertolucci, Spielberg, Naruse, Bunuel, Melies, Zhang, Kurosawa, Woo, Besson, Brooks.  Jesus Franco is not one of them.

Jesus Franco Manera, with over 190 films to his credit, is one of those unstoppable film directors (like the immortal Ed Wood) who don't let a lack of money and no real directorial talent stand in their way.  They love making movies and churn them out year after year, sometimes making as many as twenty in one year.

Most of Franco's films exist in multiple versions, with varying lengths, varying content, released with different scenes included for different countries, and most also exist in badly edited pornographic versions with inserts (yes, that is the technical term) of material totally unrelated to the rest of the film.  The producers heavily cut up the films, doing whatever was necessary to get people into the theater. 

The film I viewed for this post is possibly Franco's most accomplished effort, with big name actors (Mercedes McCambridge, Herbert Lom, Maria Schell, Luciana Paluzzi, and Rosalba Neri) and what seems to have been at least an adequate budget.  The film, just as do most other Franco films, exists in a pornographic version; I'm sure this was to the later horror of the legitimate actors who appeared in the non-pornographic version which I viewed.

Island of Despair (1969), originally titled Der heisse Tod (The Hot Death), is best known as 99 Women.  It is a WIP (Women in Prison) film, one of the first.  A group of 99 female prisoners are held in a castle prison on an island where they are stripped of their identities, known only by their prisoner numbers.  The main prisoner is 99.

The brutal superintendent (McCambridge) is an Iron Maiden who rules with a sadistic hand.  Under her administration, prisoners frequently have lethal "accidents."  She also has an arrangement with the corrupt governor (Lom) of the men's prison on the other side of the island.  He visits the women's prison to make use of it as his own personal harem. 

The government has become aware of the horrible conditions in the women's prison and sends an earnest prison reformer (Maria Schell) to correct the situation.  Of course, everything goes horribly wrong, and, at the end of the film, the reformer sadly leaves the prison which she knows has not changed at all.  The hopeless situation remains hopeless.  The reformer leaves with the female prisoners standing in the prison yard, staring at her back as she goes through the gate.

Christians often come across hopeless situations which seem to be beyond redemption.   People many times do not wish to hear what we have to say.  We may be tempted by their rejection to simply turn and walk away, to exit the gate.  And, realistically, we may not effect any change no matter what we do.  So, what is "success"?

In his book, Share Jesus Without Fear, William Fay points out that "success is sharing your faith and living your life for Jesus Christ.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing anyone to the Lord.  It has everything to do with obedience."  Obedience, not results, is success for a Christian.  Results come from the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit indwells every believer.  "... we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, living in us ..."