Half Spirit- Voice of the Spider (1995) La Voix de l'araignee byBuoy

Half Spirit- Voice of the Spider (1995) La Voix de l'araignee

0] This film is in French with hard-coded English subtitles.

1] Where did this film come from?


In 1995 this film played at the Florida Film Festival. It was extremely unusual and immediately became one of my

favorite films. It has never been commercially released. The story about why such a great, unique, and interesting film

was never released follows.

2] Film Details for La voix de l'araignee or Half Spirit- Voice of the

Spider

PLOT SUMMARY- Half Spirit has spent the last year chained to a radiator by her husband. She begins hearing a spider

named Jimminy talking to her and manages to escape, falling in love along the way with drug dealer Gil and almost

falling foul of the deranged Badfly, who stalks women and pushes them off ledges, convinced that they can fly. Also on

her trail is Priest, a mad Catholic minister looking to mete out some Old Testament justice.

DETAILS


Country of Origin: France


Year of Production: 1995


Produced by: Carl Beyer


Director: Henri Barges


Director of Photography: Serge Godet


Editor: Henri Barges


Visual Effects by: Olivier Cotte


Locations: Belgium; France; Germany; Ukraine

CAST


Marc Duret


Jacques Fontan


Laurence Le Dantec (la banquiere)


Philippe Spiteri


Catherine Ussel (Half Spirit)

AWARDS

1995

Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film, Belgium


Silver Raven (Henri Barges) - winner


Mystfest, Italy


Best Film (Henri Barges) - nominated



3] The drama surrounding La voix de l'araignee or Half Spirit- Voice of the

Spider.

The French government was involved in the funding/realization of this movie.

The owner of this movie (the person who hired the producer) paid the producer for the parts of the film that occur in

the Ukraine with fake Russian rubles. This means that the owner pocketed the majority of the production money for the

film, bought fake rubles for 10 cents on the dollar and then paid those rubles to the producer. The owner was therefore

not interested in selling the film because if the film had sold for distribution this bit of chicanery would have likely

come under some scrutiny. Punishment of the owner by those so cheated, including the government and heightened by the

fact that the source funding came from the government, lurked in the future of the owner who did not seek to hasten his

own demise. The owner needed to make enough money to cover this potential backlash or else he was not interested in

selling, thereby minimizing the potential backlash. The producer pursued this issue with the owner for a year and a

half without result. The film had a number of offers, of which the best was from Miramax; however, the owner of the film

never signed any deal and so the producer was forced to move on.

I have no idea why the matter was not pursued with the French government, as surely the derelict owner needs to spend

some time in a jail cell. A proper print of this film still exists which would be suitable for DVD release.



4] Transfer Specifics


With some difficulty I acquired a VHS copy of this movie some 10 years ago, and now I have extracted the highest

quality film possible from this source. Enjoy. You will not see anything else like this film.

5] Other Resources- this torrent consists of five files


a) The movie


b) Two arty commercials by the director Henri Barges


c) The write up for the movie from the magazine variety


d) Information about the producer

Links


e) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113250/
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f) http://www.eofftv.com/v/voi/voix_de_laraignee_main.htm
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g) http://www.henribarges.com/
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h) http://www.cobaltbluefilms.com/Welcome.html
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