Known mainly to avant-garde film completists, Walerian Borowczyk staked his claim to cinematic infamy as an erotic fantasist and cultural cage-shaker with 1975’s THE BEAST. A feature-length expansion of a nixed chapter from his omnibus film IMMORAL TALES, this insanely lewd Freudian kink-fest nearly destroyed Borowczyk’s long and distinguished career, which began with dozens of award-winning animated films and transitioned into live-action with GOTO: L’ILE D’AMOUR, one of his most stylized and esoteric projects.

Making its DVD debut courtesy of Cult Epics, GOTO is a dense and beautiful work of art, showcasing the director’s talent for dreamlike manipulation of images characterized in his animation phase, while offering a sneak peek (albeit a subtle one) at his intense fascination with primal impulses and the naked human form. It’s a great introduction for fans of surreal cinema into the wild, weird world of an idiosyncratic artist... but remarkably tame compared to the films which followed it. Conversely, if you were first introduced to Borowczyk via THE BEAST, don’t go into this one expecting X-rated fare.

This surreal adult fairytale is set on the fictional island of the title, the remnants of a country both geographically and culturally isolated from the rest of civilization by a massive natural disaster - known as “The Great Catastrophe of 1887” - and ruled over by Governor Goto III (Pierre Brasseur), an eccentric despot who enforces a pre-disaster way of life (including the rejection of modern technology), allows only names beginning with “G,” and forces his subjects to adhere to oddball rituals and strict laws, or else face equally deranged punishments.

One such transgressor, grubby petty thief Grozo (Guy Saint-Jean), is sentenced to mortal combat against a hulking murderer (who appears to outweigh him by two hundred pounds), until spared by Goto's lovely, gentle-natured wife Glossia (Ligia Branice, aka Mrs. Borowczyk). He is summarily pardoned and charged with the lowly duties of dog handler, boot-polisher and flycatcher. Spurred to action by his discovery of Glossia’s illicit affair with the Governor's horse trainer Lt. Gono (Jean-Pierre Andriani), the newly-empowered Grozo – who is more dangerous than he looks - begins plotting Goto’s downfall, with the intention of winning Glossia for himself.

Already acclaimed throughout Europe for his animated works, Borowczyk (known simply as “Boro” to his devotees) made a second splash with this outing, and it's easy to see why: his visual sensibilities, honed to a fine edge by his intricate manipulation of objects in the animated frame, remain intact: the composition, design and placement of live actors as if they were drawn or sculpted figures is counter-balanced by his fixation on the shapes and textures of inanimate objects (foreshadowing many of David Lynch’s early obsessions) as if they were living characters. Hyper-stylized performances and makeup call to mind the silent film era, and the minimalist staging of figures against stark, austere black & white backgrounds (punctuated by occasional color scenes for dramatic effect) creates an off-kilter artifice that seems plucked out of a fever-dream.

Memorable images abound - including a portrait of Goto’s three generations of leaders, which contains a built-in optical illusion; a guillotined head packed in a basket with sawdust; and the firing-squad execution of two of the Governor's dogs. Excellent if repetitive use of classical music cues (namely Handel's Organ Concerto No. 7) accentuates the feeling that we're watching an elaborately staged play from the subconscious, calling to mind Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali's L'AGE D'OR.

As I mentioned earlier, there is little of the rampant and often outrageous eroticism which characterized Borowczyk's later works - no raping werewolves, blood-drinking countesses, giant penises or horse-on-horse action to be found here. To be fair, there are some very nice moments of nudity – namely the whores' bath scene – and lots of steamy groping between the romantic leads, but it's remarkably tame compared to nearly every subsequent film in the directors oeuvre.

Since this film has rarely been screened in any format over the past 35 years, it’s hard to know if an optimum quality print was available, but for the most part the print used here (from Argos films) is in decent shape. Black levels are a bit weak, and scratches and stretch marks are light, but frequent. There is a very high level of grain due to the film stock used, and the color segments are quite chalky-looking, but both of these factors may have been intentional. The French-language track is presented in Dolby Digital Mono, and while a bit muffled is still remarkably resonant on the low-end. English subtitles, though non-removable, are well-rendered.

Extra features are limited, but thankfully include one of Borowczyk’s earlier landmark achievements in animation, a 14-minute short titled THE ASTRONAUT (1959). Seeing this playful and witty adventure – in which a nebbish spaceman explores strange worlds (and peeps in ladies’ windows) while piloting a craft made out of cardboard boxes and old newspapers – one can’t help but see the influence Borowczyk must have had on Terry Gilliam’s first Monty Python animations. It’s fun, frantic and full of wacky moments. Sadly, the only other supplements are a lengthy trailer for GOTO, which features most of the film’s nudity as a selling point (well, duh), and a small booklet which touches briefly on the filmmaker’s career - including a thorough filmography which whet my appetite to see more of these rare gems from the mind of a visual genius.

Sadly, this talented but misunderstood filmmaker passed away earlier this year, which makes it all the more crucial that his decades-spanning body of work be shared with the world. I can only hope that this release marks the beginning of a much-deserved Borowczyk revival. Given Cult Epics’ lavish 3-disc presentation of THE BEAST, I'm inclined to believe they share my fascination, and hope they read this review in order to parse the following:

Cult Epics, Nico B and associates, I hereby commit to writing my sincere request that you track down, restore, re-master and release the lost Borowczyk horror masterpiece, DR. JEKYLL AND HIS WOMEN. The closest I've ever seen to the actual onscreen depiction of a nightmare, this title is arguably the most eloquent blending of horror and eroticism ever committed to film. It demands to be unleashed on the world!

Of course, if you're already working on that, by all means, carry on.