Passion and Risk in Club Med with Bay of Angels and Boom!

On our travels through the cinematic world, AFS Cinema brings us to Club Med: a month-long series of films that take place around the Mediterranean Sea, which plays the role of “beautiful locale” and “menacing force”, sometimes in the same film. At Club Med, the dream and the reality of human excess collides. The financial, physical, and emotional well-being of the tourists we see are tossed aside as the beauty of the place, and the people, leads them to make costly decisions.

At Club Med, lovers quarrel and embrace at the edge of the abyss, whether they’re right along the crystal blue coastline or dangling near jagged cliffs. In this first edition of Hyperreal’s two-part coverage, we look at the first two films of the series, Bay of Angels and Boom!, and how these films populate the cinematic Mediterranean.

Bay of Angels

In Jacques Demy’s Bay of Angels (1963), we find Jean and Jackie, played by Claude Mann and Jeanne Moreau, connecting as two people with dollar signs in their eyes tend to do: in a casino. Their shared addiction to gambling becomes the basis of their relationship. Jean, getting a win on one of his first outings, has his life fundamentally changed by this massive influx of money and attempts to make the change permanent. Jackie, an already-indoctrinated gambler, chases the spirit of luck itself. She does not believe in the ultimate win like Jean; she is in love with the journey of putting it all on the line, one bet at a time. These two souls find each other at the roulette table and believe they are each other’s good luck charm.

In the first film of the series, Club Med establishes itself as a location in relationship with passion and risk. Not far from the beauty and romance of the coastline sit the casinos Jean and Jackie visit. Inside these symbols of abundance and chance, a seemingly unending pursuit on the gambling floor leads to life-altering wins and losses, sometimes within moments of each other. Outside the casino, we see them fall in love, enjoying drinks and dancing with the resort town’s luckiest patrons, and, not soon after, counting francs to see if they can get a train home or another round of roulette. They chase this high to the point where their love for each other seems to be directly connected to their luck with each other. 

In the end, this relationship is put to the ultimate test when Jean discovers the treacherous cycle they’re in and demands that they leave on the next train to Paris. Jackie’s passion, chasing lucky moments, is not compatible with this line of “rational thinking,” so Jean leaves her at the gambling table. Before Jean can take a cab to the train station, we see Jackie run after Jean. The mirrors in the hallway, along with the brilliant camera angle choice, create the image of Jackie appearing and disappearing as she chases Jean down, creating an image similar to a roulette ball galloping around the wheel. Jean and Jackie embrace with a quick cut to credits, not knowing whether Jean’s going to lead her to a train station or Jackie’s going to lead him back inside.

The risks involved in love and gambling are similar: not knowing what the next day brings and the possibility of both euphoric highs and decimating lows.

Boom!

In Boom! (1968), the Mediterranean sea doesn’t calmly lap the shores of a resort town but instead angrily crashes against the Greek island. Sissy Goforth, played by Elizabeth Taylor, sits on top of the jagged cliffs of her mountain island, supported by a variety of servants and guards as she completes her memoir. One day, her work is interrupted by Christopher Flanders (Richard Burton) climbing the mountain of her estate for reasons unknown. Christopher, Sissy believes, resembles her one true love, a poet who passed away during a mountain climbing exhibition, and the only thing Christopher has to offer to Sissy is a single collection of published poetry.

Based on a Tennessee Williams play, the entire film takes place on the cliff sides and the palace of Sissy Goforth. Here, Sissy and Christopher exchange barbs, wax poetic, and try to figure each other out. Rumors coming from outside the island tell of an “Angel of Death,” a man who becomes the suitor to rich women during their final days in hopes to be gifted their fortune upon their death. Sissy, seeing a man bearing a great resemblance to her deceased lover, believes that Christopher Flanders might be that Angel of Death and that her days are numbered. She knows pushing this man away and off the island is her best chance at surviving this encounter, but on the other hand, she has not had a lover in many years.

Once again in Club Med, we find a character drawn to the edge of the abyss, torn between passion and risk. Sissy needs love and affection beyond what she expresses to her servants and, having been married six times, she has found herself to be unlucky in love. Here, rising from the ashes of true love, Christopher Flanders, who claims they had met before, desires to be close to Sissy. Sissy knows being close to Christopher almost guarantees her likely death, and she does keep him at a distance—but she cannot resist this strange man. She invites him into her home, allows him to follow her around the island, and dresses him in one of her finest pieces of clothing: an historical samurai outfit complete with sword. In the end, Sissy eventually succumbs to Christopher's quiet advances, invites him into her bed, and breathes her last breath. The final shot, mirroring the first shot of the film, is the roaring waves below the palace, crashing against the jagged rocks.

At Club Med, people are entranced by great desires, accompanied by greater risks. Sissy sees love in the eyes of Christopher Flanders, but foresees her death in his presence. Jackie and Jean see dollar signs in their future, but with a greater likelihood of failure at any turn. The characters that come to Club Med are not ignorant of their potential demise. Even Sissy says that “[Earth] is a wheel in the great, big gambling casino”—and for these characters, the cost of their lives and livelihood are worth the possibilities of what passion might bring.

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