• Release year: 1973
• Director: Claude Faraldo.
• Producer: Hélène Vager.
• Screenplay by: Claude Faraldo.
• Cinematography by: Jean-Marc Ripert.
• Music by: Harald Maury.

Shotgun Commentary: love it or hate it kind of film. Once you get through its weirdness, you might enjoy it.

Review

Themroc is… an experience. It might sound vague, but it is the most accurate description one can give to this anarchist utopia. Ever had the inescapable urge to watch something so weird you won’t be sure whether it’s a waste of time or not until the very end? Suffer no more thanks to this film! Physical copies available through Radiance, full details after the review.

A story of liberation…

The story follows Themroc (Michel Piccoli), a man who paints buildings for a living. His life is drab and lonely, and he has some sort of sexual compulsion that eventually gets him fired. In an attempt to criticise the world that ivory towers have access to over blue collars, Themroc is caught spying on a businessman that is groping his secretary from the outside of the building he’s supposed to be painting. This gets him fired automatically, a moment that turns out to be his turning point in life.

From then on, he decides to eliminate any sort of social restraint from his life. Starting with the taboo on incest, cause why not. One of the first things he does is to initiate a relationship with his sister, played by Béatrice Romand. What begins as a really creepy encounter, in which he gets in her room and sniffs her body while she’s sleeping, turns into a full sexual relationship that imitates more animal mating behaviour than human.

You can only know that she is supposed to be his sister if you learn about the film previously. If you, like this critic, prefer to watch a film with as little prior knowledge as possible, there is a high chance that you spend the whole feature convinced that she is his daughter and his supposed mother is his wife. The twenty-seven-years gap between Piccoli and Romand is more than apparent. Not to mention that he looks about as old as Jeanne Herviale, who is supposed to be playing his mother.

… or is it?

This whole situation, along with the awkward sexual encounters that take place out of nowhere, cheapens the film’s message, turning what could’ve been an interesting exploration of anarchy into a flat background for a sexploitation film. Nobody is naive enough to think that the way sex is utilised in this film answers only to the intended message of liberation in the film. If it were, there would be a lot more equality in the way those situations are represented.

Instead, the film focuses merely on the liberation of the man at the expense of women, who are portrayed as mindless sex addicts for the most part, thus shifting the hierarchy instead of eliminating it completely. This type of consumption, reinforced with a more literal consumption of the body when the “liberated people” engage in cannibalism, confirms that halfway through the film, the filmmaker forgot about this anarchist freedom goal in favour of shock value.

All in all, Themroc is a curious film. So strange that you can only love it or hate it, there is no in-between. The lack of dialogues is the most interesting thing about it, even though the constant grunting and groaning can get tiresome. Still, it is a pretty interesting film that could’ve benefitted from a more forward mentality. This might be the first time yours truly says these words about a film at all, but this movie could do with a modern remake.

Radiance’s Blu-ray of Themroc is out now. Link and details below!

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

• 4K Restoration from the original negative by StudioCanal
• Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
• Interview with critic David Thompson (2025)
• Interview with actor Michel Piccoli and director Claude Faraldo (1973)
• Interview with Manuela Lazic on Michel Piccoli (2025)
• Gallery
• Trailer
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Alison Smith, author of French Cinema in the 1970s The echoes of May
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Find the Radiance release right here!

Advice to take from this movie:

• Actors are sometimes wrong, and that is okay too.
• Having relationships with your sister IS incest, no matter what anybody tries to make you believe.
• Never approach a crazy person on your own. They might barbecue you.

What’s your take? Have you watched Themroc? Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀