- Written and directed by Leslie Stevens
- Starring
- William Shatner
- Allyson Ames
- Eloise Hardt
- Robert Fortier
- Ann Atmar
- Produced by Anthony M. Taylor
By virtue of being one of the two known films shot entirely in Esperanto, Incubus guarantees its position in the annals of film history as a novelty act. Esperanto, for those not in the know, is a constructed language created in the late 1800s from various European roots; it’s long been touted as a universal, post-political language, and after more than a century to propagate, it has roughly 20,000 speakers belonging to the major Esperantist organizations, so I guess those are the only people for whom Incubus will not seem like a “foreign” film. (For some comparison, there are 2500 members of the Klingon Language Institute. On the other hand, there are 22,500 native Cherokee speakers.)
Writer-director Leslie Stevens was not some art film student with a crazy dream; he was a Hollywood veteran, having created and executive-produced The Outer Limits, and having written scores of teleplays. So why he deliberately decided to make a movie fated for obscurity is still something of a mystery. There was the hope that the Esperanto angle would help it get into arthouse cinemas; alas, even with a “foreign” language and subtitles, it was still an American film, and thus snubbed by Europhilic cinema programmers. After it toured the festival circuit, it languished in a film lab; then, to compound its rarity, the lab “accidentally” destroyed the master negative and all prints. Until a lone print was discovered in France in 1996, even the producer thought that it was entirely lost.
The fate of those who like to go swimming with bow-legged women.
In the intervening years, the young actor who played the male lead had become one of the most recognizable faces in pop culture, so Incubus will be known forever after as “that movie entirely in Esperanto that stars William Shatner.”
As a voiceover helpfully informs us (and subtitles graciously translate), there is near a certain village a well whose water, it’s reputed, heals its partakers and also grants them physical beauty. The desperate and vain flock to it, and thus the well is prime hunting grounds… for succubi! Young blonde vixens such as Kia (Allyson Ames) hang around the well and, as we soon see, tease and lure semi-debauched men down to the seashore, where they drown them and send their souls to hell.
Kia, though, is tired of luring and condemning men who would have ended up going that direction anyway. As she says to Amael (Eloise Hardt), “I want to find a saint and cut him down.” Amael warns against that, because the virtuous have a defense against demonic forces: “They call it ‘love.’” But Kia (and her name, by the way, is pronounced “Kaya,” not like the car) still wants to snare bigger game… and what bigger game is there than William Shatner?
No, he’s not pausing to remember his rote-learned lines. That’s just how he acts.
Shatner plays Marc/Marco (depending on whether you’re following the subtitles or the spoken dialog), an injured soldier almost returned to full health thanks to the ministrations of his sister Arndis (Ann Atmar). Both are quiet and pure souls; Marc drinks too from the well, but dismissing the rumors of its healing properties; it simply lies on the path between the village church and their small house in the woods. He catches Kia’s eye, so she follows them home and then approaches their house, posing as an itinerant farmworker who’s lost the road. Marc offers her food and drink, and it’s apparent that there are sparks flying between them. And who can blame them? Kia is a professional (or even congenital) seductress, and Marc is William Shatner, a charming specimen of manhood even in a language that he can’t really speak.
After a solar eclipse — yes, those come along without warning, didn’t you know? — gives Marc a chance to playfully remark that he and Kia have “spent the night together,” he accompanies her seeking the right road. It’s a light romp through the woods, but when Kia really turns on the charm and propositions him, he proclaims his love for her but states that he only wants to consummate it the proper way, once they’re legally wed.
They make out and have a nap in the grass, and while Kia’s asleep Marc carries her back to town, to the most fitting place to take one’s intended: the church. Of course, when the succubus wakes up surrounded by crosses and icons, she thrashes her way out of Marc’s grasp and goes running off alone into the woods, where Amael meets her to give her a dose of I-told-you-so.
Absolutely your only opportunity to hear Esperanto spoken with a Montreal accent.
One of the most interesting parts of this movie is how Kia and Amael characterize Marc’s love for Kia; Amael declared that Marc has “befouled you with his love,” and Kia calls it a “holy rape” which must be avenged. And to do that avenging, they call on… the incubus! (And you thought that the title was an ironic reference to Marc, who tempts a succubus? Hardly!)
The incubus is… well, some guy (Milos Milos) who crawls out of the soil after Kia and Amael pray to the Dark Lord. He doesn’t look that impressive, especially when mud-smeared, but as their plan for revenge unfolds, you realize that he isn’t the exact analog to the succubi. They’re temptresses who snare and lead men’s souls to hell; the incubus is, essentially, a demonic rapist. That’s right, they’re going to take their revenge on Marc via virginal Arndis…
Oddly enough, “incubus” translates from Esperanto as “human potato.”
What I’ve described for you is really most of the movie, despite not seeming like a lot has happened. I’ll let you in on a secret: Not a lot has happened. At least not a lot which relates to the story that the movie ostensibly is trying to tell. There are plenty of shots of various characters walking in the woods; there’s plenty of dialog which walks the line between vapid and pretentious (I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that it’s not a lot more powerful in the original Esperanto). There’s the solar eclipse, which comes out of nowhere and has not much point except that, even after being warned, Arndis looks at it for about two minutes straight and suddenly ends up blind, except that her vision comes back so the whole episode is pointless. And for some reason, we keep cutting to snatches of footage of Kia’s first victim of the movie (Robert Fortier) bobbing in the water.
The Esperanto dialog gives the movie a much more standoffish feel than can even be attributed to subtitling. All “real”languages are informed by, and in turn inform, the culture in which they evolved; being a constructed “universal” language, Esperanto has no native idioms or figures of speech. It’s the anti-”Darmak and Jilad.” Given that the script was written in English, then translated to Esperanto with the original script thrown up as subtitles, I can’t believe that those who made it wouldn’t have realized how much of a barrier their decision to use a language that essentially no one speaks would be.
The other Vulcan salute.
Between the distancing effect of the dialog and the subtitles, the consciously otherworldly tone of the story, the admittedly beautiful black-and-white cinematography, the meandering pace of the narrative, and the understated mythology informed by folk Catholicism, Incubus seems very much like a European movie; in fact, producer Anthony Taylor could probably have pretended it was a European movie when he was trying to book it in arthouse theaters.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 1
- breasts: 1
- explosions: 0
- dream sequences: 1
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
- William Shatner, obviously
- Robert Fortier (“Olin,” Kia’s victim at the start of the movie) played “Tomar,” the alien that Scotty drank under the table, in the classic episode “By Any Other Name” — and yes, I recognized him before I looked him up
Bill Shatner will never live it down, will he. But then why should he.
I understand Forrest Ackerman did the Esperanto translation, and I remember that many Esperanto speakers originally shunned the movie to begin with. I really don’t know why – excellent film.
If you want to translate from Esperanto to English, or vice-versa by the way I would recommend http://www.apertium.org
I Liked the eery music and the bells.
Who was the composer?
The organizations are small (because, after all, why pay to be a member?) but the number of people fluent in Esperanto is around two million.
Thanks –
David Wolff
Past president, Esperanto League for North America
Word on the street (i.e., the IMDb) is that Incubus reuses Dominic Frontiere’s score from the Outer Limits episode “Nightmare.”
Though I understand from this Wikipedia article (which is where I learned all I know about Esperanto, really) that that number’s subject to some dispute.
I can see that getting an extra-organizational count of Esperantists would be tough, because it’s not like they’re a geographically clustered community where you could take a headcount.
That’s a good outline of this movie. :)
The movie is also notable in that it was entirely _directed_ in Esperanto! The cast and crew had gone off to a two-week Esperanto boot camp / crash course, and not only had to learn all of their lines in Esperanto, but had to deal with the director refusing to give any English directions! ;)
It’s a couple of years since I saw this movie and the DVD featured interviews. The movie itself seems to have been cursed, with the masters and every known copy having been accidentally destroyed while in their supposedly safe storage facility! It was entirely lost until it was discovered in an art house cinema in Paris, having been playing, they said, continually for all those years! They had to restore the movie and get rid of the French subtitles in order to make it into the DVD we could buy today! The curse continued, with real-world adultery, murder and suicide involving cast and or directors in the wake of the movie, and even with my purchased copy of the DVD, which I had been carrying around for a convenient time to watch with a friend, as it had been squashed in my computer backpack for too long and had gotten severely scratched, so it could no longer be watched at all. :~{
By the way, in a recent educational video from Google/GMail, they suggest that a good use of the extra time you may save by GMail filtering your spam is to learn Esperanto! ;) (And practice wacky dance moves!!)
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-our-spam-filter-works.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FVme_xIRYk
Anyone wanting to produce another movie entirely in Esperanto would be in rare company! Maybe try http://en.lernu.net/ ?
The movie is cursed. They had a safe-storage facility, but the masters and all known copies were accidentally destroyed! (After thirty years they found one that had been playing continually in an art-house cinema in Paris, which had to be repaired and have the French subtitles removed.) The cast and directors/producers were involved with marital unfaithfulness, suicide and murder in the wake of the movie! My DVD, which I had been carrying in my overloaded computer backpack got badly scratched and I can’t watch it anymore. :(
You review is very good. Also, the movie was entirely directed in Esperanto! The entire cast and crew had been required to attend a two-week Esperanto boot camp or crash course in Esperanto, and not only had to learn their lines in Esperanto, but had to understand every instruction from the director in Esperanto! ;)
Anyone wanting to produce and direct a feature movie entirely in Esperanto will certainly be in rare company and should check out LERNU dot NET for easy and free lessons in Esperanto.
I just noticed another entirely Esperanto movie mentioned at WWW dot KURSO dot COM dot BR! (That’s BR for Brazil.) The announcement must be a couple of years old, as it was scheduled for release at the Esperanto World Congress in Yokohama and links to a defunct website.
La Patro (The Father), the newest movie from Joe Bazilio,
is to be realease in the Esperanto World Congress, in
Jokahama, Japan. The movie, entirely spoken in Esperanto
and with subtitles in many languages, is the second in the
career of the Brazilian director, …
I also just found a really cool website linking several Esperanto resources (like KLAKU . NET ) I didn’t realise existed! WWW . KAFEJO . COM ! Bonega!
One more thing. I think that the eclipse scene in Incubus was not pointless. It indicated an omen of danger, and emphasized the vulnerability of Marco’s sister to the growing danger from the evil predators nearby and eager to do harm.
I think that the eclipse scene in Incubus was not pointless. It indicated an omen of danger, and emphasized the vulnerability of Marco’s sister to the growing danger from the evil predators nearby and eager to do harm.
I also noticed today another entirely Esperanto movie mentioned at WWW dot KURSO dot COM dot BR! (That’s BR for Brazil.) The announcement must be a couple of years old, as it was scheduled for release at the Esperanto World Congress in Yokohama and links to a defunct website.
Also there is a really cool website linking several Esperanto resources (like KLAKU . NET ) I didn’t realise existed! WWW . KAFEJO . COM ! Bonega!
There are many reasons why Esperanto never caught on and why it is at best a curiosity. The lack of a culture behind it is one of those reasons. You can find a lot of other reasons at RANTO: Learn (not) to Speak Esperanto.
Or you could just watch this movie and have it explained in tedious detail. :D
“Bow-legged women”… dude, was that a Coraline movie reference?
Haven’t seen it, so no.
Cat Prickett: It’s from the playground verse,
I’m Popeye the sailor man
I live in a garbage can
I like to go swimmin’
With bowlegged women
I’m Popeye the sailor man (poop-poop!)
My favourite variation on this theme is
I’m Popeye the sailor man
I live in a caravan
I turned on the heater
And burned off my wiener
I’m Popeye the sailor man (poop-poop!)
Thanks, Sarah. Perhaps the song in Coraline was making reference to those.
Another movie that was difficult for me to get through. Taken individually, these film attributes–being in a foreign language with subtitles; being old (pre-1970s); being set in the past; being set in the countryside–are not guaranteed to make me dislike a movie, but when it’s all of them at once…
As with /Bucket of Blood/, the best part of this movie was seeing a favourite actor in their youth.
Brian Barker, thanks for the apertium.org link!