Arnold Schwarzenegger made it big in Hollywood in 1982 with Conan the Barbarian. For some time now, the former Governator has been flirting with a return to the muscular warrior role. Because it’s worked so well with the memorable Terminator movies of the last few years. There is now the better film update of Robert Howard’s creation. The Rese is unique from the gross, borderline and beautiful Conann, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The Fantasy Hell Ride redesigns the barbarian from scratch, namely as a woman looking back at the blood trail of her life stations.
The barbarian is played by six women in the fantasy adventure
Conann is the third feature film by Bertrand Mandico, who hit fans of queer, transgressive film art with The Wild Boys in 2017 like a bomb made of glitter, sailor’s yarn and dummy penises. In it, he sends five uncontrollable boys (played by women) on a recovery journey with a hypermasculine captain. The black and white spectacle charged with eroticism and violence landed on 1st place in the best films of the year by the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.
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Conan
Mandico returns to the Croisette this year with Conann, bringing fewer dummy penises with him, but a fair dose of cannibalism, torture and gut ripping out. His Conann finds herself as an older woman at the gates of hell and meets a kind of Cerberus with the beautiful name Rainer (like Rainer Werner Fassbinder). Rainer wears leather, but his most striking feature is probably his dog face. Like a Master of Ceremonies, Rainer conducts the Looking back at her life, her loved ones and her (pretty gory) deeds.
The journey leads from 15-year-old Connan, when her mother is split in two by a barbarian before her eyes, to the 55-year-old, with a different face every ten years. Conann is played by a total of six actresses.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s barbarian becomes a romantic idol
Mandico processes Robert Howard’s fantastic vision of masculinity as a disturbing dance. Its structure is more like Max Ophül’s glamorous riot of color Lola Montez about the courtesan of the same name than John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian.
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Rainer
The muscular fantasy icon transforms into an idol of dark romancewho falls in love with her parents’ killer and flees to a life far from sword and sorcery. At least for a while. Because Mandico wants to disturb, wants to push the boundaries of kitsch and gore until they blur. That’s why Conann (film as well as character) not only wallows in carefully selected cave sets, but also in his own willows, brain matter and other ingredients for human nature. At some point she even pulls out a machine gun.
Conann is definitely not to everyone’s taste. He pushes off. Either because of the disgusting handmade effects. Or thanks to the overstylized, poetic antics of Hellhound Rainer, who comments on everything like a philosophy professor at the World Cup. For those in the small intersection of film lovers who gravitate towards both, Conann is a must-watch.
The uncompromising originality of The Wild Boys doesn’t seem quite as fresh in Conann, but Betrand Mandico remains a reliable organizer of trips into his strange, beguiling film world.