Shock Treatment (1973)

An action-packed slog

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

When the executive of the fashion industry Hélène Masson (Annie Girardot) is dumped by her lover, she has a midlife crisis and her friend Gérôme Savignat (Robert Hirsch) advises her to spend vacation in the isolated rejuvenation clinic owned by Dr. Devilers (Alain Delon) and his partner Dr. Berbard (Michel Duchaussoy). Hélène is welcomed by the happy clients and befriends the Portuguese employee João, who is an illegal immigrant, practicing her knowledge in Portuguese language with him.After the first injection of a formula based on animal blood, Hélène feels very well. But soon Gérôme can not afford to pay the treatment and commits suicide. Then João disappears and Dr. Devilers does not allow her to check-out the clinic. Hélène is suspicious that something is wrong and she goes further in her investigation of the clinic and finds the secret of the rejuvenation formula of Dr. Devilers."Traitement de Choc" is an unbelievable story of a doctor that uses illegal immigrants as an important component of his formula of rejuvenation. The story is of the same year of "Soylent Green" and both uses human blood and flesh with different purposes. The director Alain Jessua uses a bold but also silly scene of frontal nudity of the actors and actresses that does not add any value to the movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Tratamento Diabólico" ("Devilish Treatment")

'Shock Treatment' is the quoted translation at the start of this Alain Delon flick, part of the Alain Delon 'Screen Icons' box-set. The title used by IMDb stinks of Carry On innuendo as it belittles a popular sort of subject when it was made in 1973.Rejuvenation and cosmetic beautification and its perceived ramifications were subjects handled quite a bit by the likes of Michael Crichton and this rather strange brew of beauty and savagery quite neatly stitches these two aspects together.Annie Girardot plays the retail executive out to get some posh spa treatment at the exclusive resort run by the sinister Dr Devilers (Delon). Amongst the carrot juice cocktails and seaweed scrubs are life- affirming injections, whilst the ever rotating staff of illegally working Portuguese young male staff are despondent for some reason. A fellow patient mysteriously commits suicide and so Girardot goes on the prowl and does some investigating. The explicit nudity was indeed an eye opener as I was only aware beforehand that it was cert 15 but of course all that frivolity, naturalness and freedom comes at a price. It all becomes nicely sickening the more we know as to how the clinic works and how it gets its medical "powers".All in all, it's quite fun, suspenseful and macabre but please don't think that it's a cheesy comedy that's only out for cheap laughs that its popular title conveys.

Helene Masson, a busy executive from Paris goes for a special treatment at a spa where she meets a lot more than just to give her body a treat, and a rest from her busy schedule. The clinic where she is going to stay is run by an enigmatic man, Dr. Devilers, whose program gets fabulous results in restoring a youthful appearance and a special glow to its many repeat patients, that find what they are looking for at the hands of the able staff. Unfortunately, they will be eating a diet that includes a lot of sea grass in its menu.It does not take long before Helene starts noticing the Portuguese workers moving like automatons. When one of them falls in the swimming pool, she jumps to save him from drowning. There are many things that do not make sense. Helene decides to investigate, something that takes her to uncharted territory. In doing so, Helene is suspected of wanting to destroy Dr. Devilers wonderful work. She will be shocked when she realizes what she has gotten herself into.Director Alain Jessua directed this thriller with shades of science fiction we never saw. Because of its nudity, this film probably had limited release, but not knowing for sure, we could not even hazard a guess. One of the strengths of the film is the production design by Geo Huris, Yannis Kokkos, and Constantin Mejinsky. The setting for the film looks contemporary by today's standards. The achievement of Mr. Jessua lies on the great look he gave the picture, something that is rare in films of more recent vintage. The camera work of Jacques Robin works well, as does the original score by Mr. Jessua and Rene Koering.Annie Girardot, one of the great French cinema actresses of all times, is excellent as Helene. Alain Delon, one of the handsomest faces of the world cinema, bares it all in a sequence that will be remembered for its frankness at a time when nudity well known actors did not show their charms for audiences to see. Robert Hirsch and Michael Duchaussoy are also featured.

Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" was required reading on college campuses across America back in 1972 and the alarmist book, "about the future and the shock that its arrival brings" was only a forerunner of the fears the 1970s grappled with. Many movies at the time jumped on the bandwagon with cautionary tales and one of the better ones was Alain Jessua's TRAITMENT DE CHOC (1973) which tells the story of Helene (Annie Girardot), a wealthy French fashion designer who has a mid-life crisis when her boyfriend leaves her for a younger woman. On the advice of a friend (Robert Hirsch), she checks into a revolutionary rejuvenation clinic run by the charismatic Dr. Devilers (Alain Delon) where the clientèle, "a microcosm of society" consisting of judges, politicians, bankers, and wealthy heirs, form a sort of secret sect. Helene feels great after the first injection but when her friend can no longer pay, he becomes a pariah in the tight-knit community and he tries to warn her away. The next day he commits suicide and Helene is determined to leave the spa against the doctor's advice until she's approached by two undocumented Portugese male help who separately plead with her to help them escape just before they disappear. Helene becomes intent on discovering the suddenly sinister clinic's mysterious secrets and doesn't hesitate to sleep with the doctor to find out...The primitive "tribal" soundtrack reflects the film's premise that for all of man's technological advancements, the law of the jungle still holds with the strong preying on the weak (or, in this case, the rich feeding off the poor) in a society with more than its share of "disposables". The suspense builds slowly and the climax, although it's lost some impact after decades of similar denouements, is a shocker -but what's really scary is how little the rest of the world cares about the dreadful things Helene discovers. The similarly-themed SOYLENT GREEN was made the same year which shows that these "Me Decade" fears taken to the extreme were universal and continued to be reflected on the screen in such sci-fi films as WESTWORLD (1973), THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975), and DEATH RACE 2000 (1975). There's also a bit of "free love" commentary as the aptly named Dr. Devilers (get it?) casually sleeps with all his female patients and, compared to Hollywood films at the time, both the sympathetic treatment of a gay man (Hirsch) and the full-frontal nudity of Delon & Co. come as a bit of a shock even though both were "natural" and in context. Recommended.