A Woman Kills (1968) [Radiance Films Blu-ray]

A Woman Kills came back up in my Radiance Films rewatch jag and it got me thinking. I’ve been diving into lost cinema for decades now, and rarely does a film emerge from the vault that feels both like a time capsule and a prophecy. A Woman Kills (La Femme Bourreau) is that rare beast – a 1968 French thriller shot during the May protests that vanished for 45 years before Radiance Films excavated it for this stunning Blu-ray release. After multiple viewings, I’m convinced Jean-Denis Bonan created something that defies easy categorization while predicting where cinema would eventually go.

Lost in May ’68: When Revolution Met Serial Murder

Picture this: Paris, May 1968. Students are building barricades, workers are striking, de Gaulle is about to flee the country, and Jean-Denis Bonan is running around the streets with a 16mm camera shooting both documentary footage of the protests AND a serial killer film. The absolute madness of this production context seeps into every frame of A Woman Kills, creating something that feels less like a traditional thriller and more like a fever dream born from tear gas and revolutionary fervor.

A Woman Kills opens with news reports about Hélène Picard, a prostitute executed for murdering her fellow sex workers. The film gives us the exact date – March 22, 1968 – because Bonan wants us to know we’re watching history unfold in real-time. But here’s the kicker: the killings continue after Picard’s execution. Either the cops got the wrong killer, or we’ve got a copycat on our hands. Enter Louis Guilbeau (Claude Merlin), the executioner who carried out Picard’s sentence and who’s now romancing Solange (Solange Pradel), the beautiful cop investigating the new murders.

What unfolds over the next 69 minutes is part procedural, part psychological thriller, part experimental art film, and part documentary. Bonan filmed A Woman Kills while simultaneously documenting the May ’68 protests, and he weaves actual footage of police confrontations into his fictional narrative. When cops start dying in the film, we see real riot police in action. It’s a technique that would make Costa-Gavras proud, blurring the lines between fiction and reality in ways that feel genuinely dangerous.

The plot itself is deceptively simple – serial killer targets prostitutes, cops investigate, dark secrets emerge. But Bonan uses this framework to explore themes of identity, repression, and social upheaval that mirror the chaos happening outside his camera lens. The film’s narrator provides exact dates and times like a police report, but this clinical approach only heightens the surreal atmosphere. We’re watching a society coming apart at the seams, and the murders feel like symptoms of a larger disease.

Gender Panic at the Disco Inferno: The Story That Shocked Too Much

Let’s address the elephant in the screening room – A Woman Kills deals with cross-dressing and gender identity in ways that feel both progressive and problematic by today’s standards. The killer dresses as a woman to commit the murders, and Bonan explores this aspect with a mixture of fascination and exploitation that was typical of late-60s cinema. Think Psycho meets The Detective with a French New Wave twist.

Louis Guilbeau’s relationship with Solange provides the film’s emotional core, such as it is. Their scenes together crackle with an uncomfortable energy – he regales her with detailed descriptions of execution methods over dinner, she seems both repulsed and attracted. Merlin plays Louis as a man barely containing something terrible within himself, while Pradel’s Solange represents a new kind of female detective – smart, independent, but trapped in a world of male violence.

The film’s treatment of its transgender elements is complicated. On one hand, Bonan clearly sympathizes with outsiders and those who don’t fit society’s rigid categories. On the other hand, the association of gender fluidity with violence perpetuates harmful stereotypes that persist to this day. Watching A Woman Kills in 2023 requires acknowledging this problematic aspect while recognizing it as a product of its time. The excellent commentary track by Kat Ellinger and Virginie Sélavy provides crucial context here, discussing how the film fits into a broader pattern of 1960s thrillers that used similar tropes.

What saves A Woman Kills from being just another exploitative thriller is Bonan’s clear interest in using genre conventions to explore deeper themes. The killer’s gender performance becomes a metaphor for social masks and hidden identities. In a society tearing itself apart over questions of authority and authenticity, who’s to say what’s “normal” anymore? The film’s final act, where Louis’s psyche completely unravels during a chase through the demolished Belleville district, visualizes this breakdown in stunning fashion.

Claude Merlin Makes Norman Bates Look Well-Adjusted

I need to talk about Claude Merlin’s performance because it’s the kind of acting that makes you uncomfortable in the best possible way. From his first appearance, Merlin projects an aura of barely-contained violence wrapped in bourgeois respectability. He’s an executioner – literally society’s designated killer – trying to maintain a normal relationship, and Merlin lets us see how thin that veneer of normalcy really is.

There’s a dinner scene that’s become my favorite example of how A Woman Kills subverts expectations. Louis describes various execution methods to Solange while she eats, the camera maintaining a static shot partially blocked by a houseplant. It’s Bonan saying “I could give you a conventional scene, but where’s the fun in that?” Merlin delivers his monologue with the passion of a sommelier describing wine pairings, making the grotesque feel mundane and the mundane feel grotesque.

Solange Pradel deserves equal credit for making her character more than just a victim-in-waiting. She brings intelligence and agency to a role that could’ve been thankless. The way she gradually realizes Louis’s true nature is played with subtlety – you can see the awareness dawning in her eyes even as she continues the relationship. Pradel had worked with Jean Rollin on The Rape of the Vampire the same year, and she brings some of that film’s dreamlike quality to her performance here.

The supporting cast is filled with faces familiar to French genre fans. Jackie Raynal appears as one of the victims, while Jean Rollin himself has a small role as a cop. These weren’t just random casting choices – Bonan was part of a loose collective of filmmakers operating on the margins of French cinema, and A Woman Kills feels like a family affair. Even the victims are given moments of humanity, preventing the film from becoming purely exploitative.

Special mention must go to Bernard Letrou, who plays a police inspector trying to make sense of the chaos. His increasingly frantic attempts to maintain order as both the investigation and society spiral out of control provide some of the film’s darkest comedy. When he delivers a monologue about the killer’s hands becoming like jellyfish, unable to grasp anything solid, you realize everyone in this film is losing their grip on reality.

Bonan’s Cursed Vision: Style Over Sanity

Jean-Denis Bonan came to A Woman Kills with a background that explains everything and nothing. He’d worked on newsreels, made controversial short films (more on those later), and had his previous work banned by French censors. He was what the French call a “cinéaste maudit” – a cursed filmmaker operating in the margins, too strange for commercial cinema but too talented to ignore.

Bonan’s direction in A Woman Kills is intentionally distancing. He uses long takes when you expect quick cuts, handheld cameras when you want stability, and static shots when movement would seem natural. It’s anti-cinema in the best sense – constantly reminding you that you’re watching a construction while pulling you deeper into its nightmare logic. The influence of Godard is obvious, but Bonan pushes further into abstraction.

The use of documentary footage is particularly brilliant. Rather than trying to hide the film’s low budget, Bonan incorporates real protest footage in ways that comment on the fictional narrative. When the film’s authority figures start dying, we see actual cops in riot gear. When Louis flees through demolished neighborhoods, we’re looking at real urban destruction. Fiction and reality bleed together until you’re not sure which is which – exactly the feeling of living through May ’68.

Gérard de Battista’s cinematography deserves massive credit for making A Woman Kills look like anything but a rushed, low-budget production. Shot in black and white 16mm, the film has a raw immediacy that more polished productions lack. De Battista finds beauty in unlikely places – a spiral staircase becomes a visual metaphor for descent into madness, empty streets feel pregnant with violence, and faces are often partially obscured, suggesting hidden depths.

The editing by Mireille Abramovici (Bonan’s partner at the time) is equally unconventional. She’ll hold on seemingly unimportant details while crucial action happens off-screen, or cut abruptly from violence to tranquility. It’s disorienting but purposeful – A Woman Kills doesn’t want you to get comfortable. The film’s 69-minute runtime feels both too short and exactly right, ending just as your nerves are about to snap.

16mm Dreams in 2K Reality: The Transfer That Shouldn’t Work But Does

Let’s talk technical specs, because Radiance Films has performed a minor miracle with this 2K restoration from original 16mm elements. When I first heard about this release, I was skeptical – how good could a 16mm film shot guerrilla-style in 1968 really look? The answer is: surprisingly fantastic, with caveats that actually enhance rather than detract from the experience.

The grain structure is pronounced but organic, giving A Woman Kills the texture of a particularly vivid nightmare. This isn’t the antiseptic cleanliness of modern digital cinema – it’s film with all its imperfections intact. Detail is remarkable considering the source material. You can see the wear on Louis’s execution tools, the texture of Solange’s coat, the debris in the demolished streets. Close-ups reveal a level of information I wouldn’t have thought possible from 16mm.

Black levels are deep without crushing detail, crucial for a film that spends significant time in shadows. The grayscale separation is excellent, allowing De Battista’s careful lighting to shine. When Louis transforms into his female alter ego, the play of light across his face as he applies makeup is genuinely beautiful in a disturbing way. Contrast is expertly balanced – never too harsh, never too flat, always serving the mood.

Yes, there’s visible damage in places, particularly in the final third. Scratches, specs, and other age-related artifacts appear, but they feel appropriate rather than distracting. This is a film about decay and destruction – a too-pristine transfer would feel wrong. The damage becomes part of the text, another layer of history embedded in the image. It’s like looking at a restored fresco where you can still see the cracks.

The 1.33:1 aspect ratio (that’s old-school TV shape for you youngsters) feels claustrophobic in the best way. Bonan and De Battista use every inch of the frame, often positioning characters at the edges or partially out of view. On a modern widescreen display, the pillarboxing focuses your attention like blinders, appropriate for a film about tunnel vision and obsession.

Mono Sound That Feels Like Stereo Paranoia

The French LPCM 2.0 mono track is, simply put, exactly what this film needs. A Woman Kills doesn’t require surround sound or Atmos heights – it needs clarity, presence, and the ability to make you lean forward to catch every word. Radiance’s uncompressed mono delivers all of that and more.

Dialogue is crisp and clear, essential for a film that alternates between whispered confessions and bureaucratic pronouncements. The narrator’s voice has a wonderful period-appropriate tinniness that places you firmly in 1968. When characters speak, you can hear the room tone, the ambient noise of a city in upheaval. It’s mono that creates space through careful recording rather than channel separation.

Bernard Vitet’s free jazz score is a revelation through this track. Vitet was a musician who later joined French prog rockers Gong, and his work here predicts that psychedelic future. Discordant horns slash across scenes like audio knife wounds, while abstract percussion creates unease even in quiet moments. The score never lets you settle, always suggesting violence about to erupt. Through the clarity of this mono track, every instrumental detail is audible.

The sound design is equally impressive. Bonan uses audio to disorient – conversations continue while the camera looks elsewhere, crucial information is delivered off-screen, and Daniel Laloux’s Brechtian songs comment on the action like a Greek chorus. The mix balances these elements perfectly, never muddying the various layers. When the film incorporates documentary footage, the audio shifts subtly to match, creating an unsettling authenticity.

Environmental sounds are used sparingly but effectively. The echo of footsteps in empty streets, the distant sound of protests, the intimate noise of violence – all are captured with a directness that modern sound design often lacks. This is sound that feels captured rather than created, documentary aesthetics applied to fictional horror. During the climactic chase, the mono track creates urgency through simplicity rather than bombast.

Special Features: A Master Class in Context

Radiance Films understands that a film like A Woman Kills needs context, and boy do they deliver. The special features here aren’t just EPK fluff – they’re essential viewing that transforms how you understand the main feature. This is boutique releasing at its finest, treating a forgotten film like the cultural artifact it is.

The crown jewel is “On the Margin: The Cursed Films of Jean-Denis Bonan,” a 37-minute documentary that explains how a filmmaker becomes “cursed.” Director Francis Lecomte interviews Bonan, cinematographer De Battista, editor Abramovici, and others about not just A Woman Kills but Bonan’s entire career. Learning about his censorship troubles, his time at the experimental Clinique de La Borde, and his connection to the May ’68 protests adds layers to what might otherwise seem like mere provocation.

The audio commentary by Kat Ellinger and Virginie Sélavy is exceptional. These two scholars bring different perspectives – Ellinger focusing on genre elements and gender politics, Sélavy on French cinema history and cultural context. Their conversation feels natural rather than scripted, with genuine enthusiasm for the film’s strangeness. They discuss everything from the film’s relation to other cross-dressing thrillers to the significance of specific dates mentioned in the narrative.

But wait, there’s more! Radiance includes five of Bonan’s short films, and these are revelations. “The Sadness of the Anthropophagi” (1966) is a blasphemous satire featuring a café that serves human waste – it was banned immediately and shows why Bonan couldn’t get distribution for A Woman Kills. “A Crime of Love” and “Crazy Matthew” explore rural violence with a style that predicts the feature. Watching these shorts, you understand Bonan as an artist compulsively drawn to society’s extremes.

The introduction by Virginie Sélavy efficiently sets up the historical context, perfect for viewers who might not be familiar with May ’68 or French genre cinema. At just under five minutes, it provides crucial information without over-explaining. The first pressing also includes a booklet with essays that I won’t spoil here, but trust me – it’s worth reading before your second viewing.

Why A Woman Kills Vanished and Why A Woman Kills Matters Now

So why did A Woman Kills disappear for 45 years? The simple answer is that it was too much for 1968 – too violent, too sexual, too politically charged, too formally experimental. Producer Anatole Dauman, who’d backed challenging films like Hiroshima Mon Amour, couldn’t find anyone willing to distribute it. The film sat in a vault until 2010, when it was finally screened at the Cinémathèque Française.

But the complex answer is more interesting. A Woman Kills represents a path French cinema didn’t take – a fusion of political engagement, genre exploitation, and formal experimentation that was too radical even for the radical ’60s. While Godard was making increasingly abstract political films and mainstream French cinema was becoming more conventional, Bonan created something that refused all categories.

Watching A Woman Kills today, it feels both dated and prescient. The gender politics are problematic, but the film’s exploration of identity, performance, and social breakdown feels utterly contemporary. In an era of increasing surveillance, social media personas, and political upheaval, Bonan’s vision of a society where everyone wears masks resonates. The film’s mixture of documentary and fiction prefigures everything from Man Bites Dog to found footage horror.

The film also matters as a document of its time. This is May ’68 captured not in straightforward documentary but filtered through genre cinema’s cracked lens. The protests become backdrop and metaphor, the personal and political inseparable. When Louis flees through demolished streets, he’s running through the wreckage of the old France. When authority figures die, it’s wishful thinking turned Grand Guignol.

For students of film history, A Woman Kills fills a crucial gap. It shows what was happening in French cinema’s margins while the New Wave was cresting. It connects the experimental shorts of the early ’60s to the extreme cinema of the ’70s. It’s a missing link that explains how we got from Breathless to I Stand Alone.

The Radiance Treatment: Boutique Love for the Damned

Radiance Films is relatively new to the boutique Blu-ray game, but releases like this prove they understand what collectors want. Founded by former Arrow Video executive Francesco Simeoni, Radiance focuses on world cinema’s forgotten gems, and A Woman Kills is exactly the kind of film that benefits from their attention.

The packaging is gorgeous without being ostentatious. The commissioned artwork captures the film’s noir atmosphere while hinting at its experimental nature. The reversible sleeve gives you options, and the spine looks great on the shelf next to other Radiance releases. This is spine number 8 in their collection, and it maintains the high standards set by earlier releases.

The technical presentation exceeds what anyone could reasonably expect from such obscure source material. Radiance worked with Luna Park Films’ restoration, but they’ve clearly put effort into the encoding and authoring. The disc never struggles with the challenging material – grain is encoded naturally, damage is present but not exacerbated by compression artifacts. This is how catalog titles should be treated.

The curation of special features shows real thought about what would help viewers understand and appreciate the film. Rather than padding the disc with generic content, every extra adds value. The inclusion of Bonan’s shorts is particularly valuable – these films are even rarer than the main feature and provide essential context. This isn’t just a film release; it’s a mini film festival devoted to a forgotten artist.

At the price point, this is excellent value for anyone interested in world cinema, French film history, or just weird movies that don’t fit neat categories. Radiance has created a package that serves both casual viewers and obsessive collectors. It’s educational without being academic, comprehensive without being overwhelming.

Final Execution of A Woman Kills

A Woman Kills is not an easy film to love, but it’s an impossible film to forget. Jean-Denis Bonan created something genuinely unique – a serial killer film that’s really about social breakdown, a genre exercise that refuses genre conventions, a document of 1968 that feels relevant to 2023. It’s messy, problematic, brilliant, and frustrating, often within the same scene.

Radiance Films has given this lost film the treatment it deserves. The 2K restoration brings out every grain of Bonan’s vision, while the mono audio preserves the period atmosphere. The special features provide essential context without over-explaining the film’s mysteries. This is boutique releasing done right – respecting the film’s difficulty while making it accessible to modern audiences.

Is A Woman Kills for everyone? Absolutely not. If you want conventional narrative, clear moral positions, or technical polish, look elsewhere. But if you’re interested in cinema’s margins, in films that capture historical moments through fractured lenses, in artists who refuse to play by the rules, then this Blu-ray is essential. It’s a time capsule that feels shockingly contemporary, a reminder that the past is never as distant as we think.

For fans of French cinema, this fills a crucial gap in the historical record. For genre fans, it offers a unique take on familiar tropes. For collectors, it’s a beautiful package of a film you literally couldn’t see until recently. And for anyone interested in how political upheaval shapes art, A Woman Kills is a fascinating case study.

After multiple viewings, I’m still discovering new details, new connections, new ways Bonan’s vision resonates. That’s the mark of a film worth preserving, worth studying, worth arguing about. Radiance Films has done cinephiles a real service by bringing A Woman Kills out of the shadows. Now it’s up to us to decide what to do with this strange, terrible, beautiful thing.

A Woman Kills is available now from Radiance Films. Support boutique labels and physical media – they’re the only ones preserving cinema’s forgotten dreams and nightmares.