The Bilitis Rabbit Hole

A few months ago I watch movie called "Bilitis" but I realized that watching this film has been years in the making and seemingly is a journey that is still unwinding. So before I talk about the film Bilitis (Don’t watch this film btw). I want to unravel The Bilitis Rabbit Hole by going back to where it all started. 

Dune, its  trailer releases in September 2020. I was curious then about why it was so hype and touted as the best science fiction book of all time.This led me to the youtuber Quinns Ideas ( Shout out to him go check him out) who explained the dune series in great detail. This channel would lead me to watching the Dune tv-series, followed by the documentary jodorowsky's dune, and begrudgingly watching the David lynch adaptation.

All this research eventually led me to well, of course, reading the dune series. The book is better than the movies by the way. Now as I read this series ( the first 4) I accompanied it with music. I know you are probably wondering who listens to music while reading and if I am neurodivergent? No, however the music I listened to added to the experience as background to the event of Frank Herbet's Dune. The music had a soundtrack that absorbed me into the world of  Arrakis (Dune).

Around this time I had made a playlist called Infinite Strings,inspired by musicians The Gipsey Kings and Rodrigo y Gabriela. As I was reading Dune I made a spinoff of this Playlist titled “Infinite Strings: Swaying Sands' ' which was based on Arabic orchestral string music. This would be the playlist that I use while reading dune. One song in particular became one of my favorites and to me resonated with the reading well. Love Story by Omar Khorsid. 

Now this song wouldn’t help me continue down the Bilitis rabbit hole until two years later. I searched up the song one day and stumbled upon the original composer of Love Story, Francis Lai. 

Francis Lai was a french composer of mainly films who earned an oscar for the soundtrack for the film Love Story. I loved the emotion he created with his version which is a lot smoother in comparison to Omar Khorsid’s. I especially loved the added timbre of the piano. I would of course listen to the entire love story  soundtrack. My passion for his music led me to explore more of his discography. I stumbled upon this atmospheric melancholy track titled “générique” which means credits in french. Beyond the song what caught my eye was the cover for the song which was titled Bilitis. I out of curiosity searched the film Bilitis on Letterboxd and saved the film to my watchlist. 

I eventually decided to listen to the soundtrack of Bilitis which led me to playing the tracks SpringTime Ballet and Promenade on repeat.  These songs raised my spirits and made me feel at peace somehow. Francis Lai was truly puppeting me around with these amazing compositions for weeks. This was around late october when I began listening to francis lai but it would take 2 months for me to eventually watch the movie.

December 23rd the faithful event occurs. I finally watched Bilitis, a journey that as you have seen was 3 years in the making.  So let’s talk about this film. This is a french film directed by david hamilton, a photographer who was known for taking photos of young women and girls in the nude. Which definitely shows in the beginning scenes of this film which shows a group of school girls riding their bikes to the beach and getting  in nude. 

The film itself follows the titular Bilitis' experiences with love and her sexuality based on the direction of a man. Yeah it doesn’t  go well. This movie is bad, like really bad.  The only redeeming factor of this film is the soundtrack, other than that the story is abhorrent. 

 I don’t want to summarize but basically it’s a simple coming of age love story where bilitis fall in love with a woman and man, a man she refuses to give her virginity, a woman she feels comfortable loving but who wants a man, so bilitis seeks out a handsome man to gift her. Bilitis' attempt fails and the woman she loves wants the man she loves culminating in a twisted unison of the two people Bilitis loves which breaks her heart.

If that sounds cringe to you, imagine actually watching it with even more details. It was bad. So 3  years I spent going down this rabbit hole culminated in me watching a subpar movie. In all honesty I do feel this has potential to be remade especially if directed with a woman’s touch unlike this male fantasy.

The rabbit hole however continued afterward. I was curious about the actors in this film. I specifically found interest in Patti D’arbanville who played Bilitis. Doing my research I learned that she was featured in Andy Warhol projects and a part of the Factory. I came to learn that she also was a pop icon that inspired a song Lady D’arbanville, created by her ex Cat Stevens. I would also look into another actor from the film name Mathieu Carrière whose films I added on my list.

After looking into the actors I looked into explanations of the film, the little that existed at least.  where I learned it was inspired by an erotic poetry book by the same name written by Pierre Louys written in 1894. This book was controversial at the time as Pierre Louys lied about these poems being a work of antiquity written by a disciple of Sapho, a poet from Lesbos, Greece.

Learning this made me buy the book out of curiosity and reminded me of specific scenes in the film where bilitis recites poems. In fact the first poem is visualized in a very important scene early on in the film. Now this rabbit hole has culminated where I am now writing this that as of now continues this rabbit hole to year 4. I wonder where it will take me next, I will update you all on any developments in a sequel entry.