105 Themroc

[Finch]

Released in the UK and US/Canada: May 19th/20th

Living at home with his mother, bachelor house painter Themroc (Michel Piccoli, Belle de Jour) leads a dull life. One day, after an unearned run-in with his boss, the usually docile Themroc rebels and dismantles his myopic world. Made on a shoestring budget with no intelligible dialogue, Claude Faraldo’s cult taboo-busting satire about a French blue-collar worker-turned-urban caveman anarchically eviscerates mid-century labour and gender politics. Never released on home video in the UK, Themroc may be familiar to British audiences from Channel 4's infamous Red Triangle showings, intended for adults only; now this savage satire can be seen again, newly presented on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

4K Restoration from the original negative by StudioCanal

Original uncompressed PCM mono audio

Interview with critic David Thompson (2025)

Interview with actor Michel Piccoli and director Claude Faraldo (1973)

Interview with Manuela Lazic on Michel Piccoli (2025)

Gallery

Trailer

Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith

Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Alison Smith, author of French Cinema in the 1970s The echoes of May

Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[domino harvey]

My writeup

Themroc (Claude Faraldo 1973)
Michel Piccoli, sick of the rat race, demolishes his apartment and begins an orgiastic revolution against society, all while uttering not a single coherent word, opting instead for guttural grunts and coughs. Everyone in the film speaks gibberish, and devolves into animalistic frenzy once Piccoli’s allure spreads. This film gets minor points for the audacity of its no coherent language premise. But the film doesn’t really do anything with this idea and ties it to one of the tritest ideas around— society is changing and work is hard and demoralizing, oh no!!! So what? This is filmed like bad cinema verite, and while I admired Piccoli’s vigor for doing actual on-screen demolition, I spent more time worrying about his safety than he seemingly did. Glad he didn’t die for this!

[MichaelB]

I'm surprised they didn't include a nostalgic "red triangle" viewing option, although that's one of those ideas that I suspect few would actually sit through.

To expand on the blurb, this was famously the first "red triangle" screening, and was massively publicised in advance – and accordingly got ratings well beyond Channel 4's wildest dreams. Which was precisely what they intended; the whole "red triangle" idea was a brilliantly canny bit of marketing that was pretty much exclusively used to accompany art movies that would have been lucky to register in the ratings at all otherwise.

There's some more background here, including a list of the other "red triangle" films – and it's pretty much impossible to imagine a major British television channel screening any of these now. (Although it was arguably a more essential service in the 1980s, when there were hardly any alternative means of watching non-mainstream films outside major cities).

[jlnight]

Also it did have a home video release in the UK. I have a copy that a friend got off ebay!

[colinr0380]

I was too young to see any of the Red Triangle films on Channel 4, sadly. And have not yet seen Themroc, though have seen clips. I do wonder if the recent UK film Aaaaaaaah! was making reference to it though!

[Dr Amicus]

I did watch it at the time, i was a teenager at the time and many of the boys in my class watched it as it was clearly going to be porn. Very few bothered watching any more after that one!

[rapta]

Interesting, the premise does sound a lot like Aaaaaaaah! (which I have seen, and it was...an experience).

I wonder if Fran hopes to release a few red triangle films via Radiance, as we know he'd very much like to do Pastoral: To Die in the Country (and presumably Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets as well), and I figured Pixote might show up via Mawu Films at some point too (but we're still waiting for them to announced their third ever title, and I assume they didn't want to focus solely on Brazil).

[domino harvey]

Kind of sounds like it might have been fun for them to include a dedicated extra about these "Red Triangle" screenings. Maybe if they release another one?

[colinr0380]

Here's the television announcement for the series, stating that the Red Triangle was there to 'warn' viewers. Although as Dr Amicus notes (and a lot of the tabloids did at the time) it actually served more as a flashing beacon to beckon viewers towards late night naughtiness!

(And here's the one for Pixote. I don't think TV announcers could get away with calling life in Sao Paulo 'subhuman' any more! And in my YouTube searches I found a fan music video dedicated to the series!)

I'm afraid that my teen years were of the mid-90s Channel 4 when they gave up on the facade of 'warning' viewers about content and plunged full bore into the smut with their Red Light Zone and Dyke TV strands! Which probably explains a lot. :-k

[The Curious Sofa]

Themroc may have been best known for its red triangle screening in the UK, but in many other European countries like Germany it was one of the most popular counter-culture cult films. It was never out of repertory houses in the 70s, along with Harold and Maude and Ferreri's Le Grande Bouffe, it was a student's cinematic rite of passage.

I can't say that I became a fan when I finally went to see what all the fuss was about, and the same was true for the Ferreri. Where Buñuel took a scalpel to the subjects of his social satires, these two used sledgehammers.

[GaryC]

Themroc may have been best known for its red triangle screening in the UK, but in many other European countries like Germany it was one of the most popular counter-culture cult films. It was never out of repertory houses in the 70s, along with Harold and Maude and Ferreri's Le Grande Bouffe, it was a student's cinematic rite of passage.

I can't say that I became a fan when I finally went to see what all the fuss was about, and the same was true for the Ferreri. Where Buñuel took a scalpel to the subjects of his social satires, these two used sledgehammers.

I had much the same reaction, watching Themroc on the Red Triangle showing and La grande bouffe when it came out on VHS.

It probably won't be me reviewing Themroc for Cine Outsider, but I look forward to the language listing being "Gibberish".

[domino harvey]

I can't say that I became a fan when I finally went to see what all the fuss was about, and the same was true for the Ferreri. Where Buñuel took a scalpel to the subjects of his social satires, these two used sledgehammers.

Yeah, I'd say the film is much in line with some of the other movies Piccoli made with Ferreri, for better or worse-- an admirably odd concept that never quite figures out what to do with itself (though I actually think La Grande bouffe works and would call it an exception to my comparison)

[colinr0380]

I checked to see if the 1997 Storm Over 4: 15 Years of Channnel 4 (NSFW) documentary was up on YouTube, that briefly deals with the "Red Triangle" series at this point. Including the factoid that the Red Triangle series came about because of tabloid controversy over a screening of Derek Jarman's Jubilee! John Beyer (the public face of Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners Association during the 1990s throughout most of the television documentaries about censorship) getting particularly upset about Themroc's canniballism makes me wonder just when the BBC showed Godard's Weekend!

That documentary is really invaluable as a particular moment of Channel 4's history in itself. It showed over the Christmas period of 1997 (along with "A Splice of Life: 15 Years of Films on 4") and the reason why Channel 4 were celebrating their "15th anniversary" was because from 1998 onwards instead of being part-funded by ITV they were going to be privatised. Whilst 1998-2000 or so was still full of interesting things (no other channel would ever have done 2000's Dogme season; or 2003's Cinema Iran season), that development is the key moment of when Channel 4 did their big swerve into the likes of Big Brother, house buying shows, Come Dine With Me and stopped being anything like as interesting as it was in its 'provocative' first fifteen years.

[The Curious Sofa]

I became an animator in part because I was inspired by the many, often experimental animation shorts Channel 4 showcased and they ended up funding my animation short just before they turned to reality TV. From then on it became a lot tougher to get funding for animation shorts in the U.K.

[beamish14]

I became an animator in part because I was inspired by the many, often experimental animation shorts Channel 4 showcased and they ended up funding my animation short just before they turned to reality TV. From then on it became a lot tougher to get funding for animation shorts in the U.K.

I’ve recommended Clare Kitson’s wonderful book British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor here before.

I’d love to see your work

[MichaelB]

Kitson was C4's first and only commissioning editor for animation, and when she left she wasn't replaced – but by then C4 had largely given up funding animation.

Which is a real shame, as what they did in the 1980s and (especially) the 1990s was absolutely phenomenal – I doubt there was much in the way of hefty financial returns, but the cultural impact was enormous.

[olmo]

Cousin Rossiter from Murun Buschtansangur , as louche a character you could find on mid 80's British TV. Out-weirded only by BBC's Ludwig

We were spoiled as kids in 70's & 80's Britain.

[domino harvey]

Warning on Amazon for the Blu-ray:



Kind of dying at so many people trying to return this when they realize that yes, in fact the film really is just a collection of grunting for two hours

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, I hated it too, and the blu-ray plays just fine

[Paul Moran]

...the blu-ray plays just fine

Pleased to know that! I have the French Studio Canal/Tamasa DVD from 2016. The Radiance Blu-ray was on my wants list, which I hadn't looked at recently (too much other stuff to watch). Anyway, now ordered.

[nicolas]

A 4K release is also upcoming at some point from Camera Obscura if anyone's interested.

[Paul Moran]

A 4K release is also upcoming at some point from Camera Obscura if anyone's interested.

I'm interested, but presumably it will be based on the same Studio Canal 4K restoration used for the Radiance Blu-ray, so I might end up sticking with the Radiance. I'll watch out for reviews.

[domino harvey]

I ended up picking this up because the extras intrigued me. The highlight ends up being one of the original French viewers in the archival extra stating that if someone watched this after getting off work on a Saturday, “On Sunday they’d kill nine people!”

I thought David Thompson’s extra was an embarrassment. The man literally pulled everything from Wikipedia and does the IMDB cast thing that commentators often do, only this is just 23 minutes he has to fill! At one point he also discusses the director’s later films and makes claims on them (by his own admission) based solely on their movie posters. Real “Nephew delete this” stuff. There are, however, a few screenshots of the film in its “red triangle” broadcast, per the earlier discussion (and it’s not even fully red, it looks like an upside down yield sign)

Lazic’s extra on Piccoli fares better, though it seems to lean heavily on Piccoli’s published autobiography. But as there’s no English translation, this isn’t detrimental at all, and I liked that she devoted some time to addressing Piccoli’s status as a sex symbol in France but not elsewhere. Also for the Bunuel fans, the extended anecdote about how Piccoli bluffed his way into being cast in La mort en ce jardin is a riot!

[jlnight]

The Red Triangle screening of Themroc got 2.35m viewers, ninth in C4's weekly ratings. That remains its only broadcast on UK TV.

[MichaelB]

Lazic’s extra on Piccoli fares better, though it seems to lean heavily on Piccoli’s published autobiography. But as there’s no English translation, this isn’t detrimental at all, and I liked that she devoted some time to addressing Piccoli’s status as a sex symbol in France but not elsewhere. Also for the Bunuel fans, the extended anecdote about how Piccoli bluffed his way into being cast in La mort en ce jardin is a riot!

I'd never slam anyone for making use of a non-English-language biography, not least because I'd be an outrageous hypocrite as I do it all the time myself. When I did the commentary for Kino's The Round-Up, I generally found the critical overviews that I amassed in English, French, and Italian to be pretty useless (although I make an honourable exception for Robert Vas' piece in Sight & Sound, which had the major advantage of being penned by a Hungarian), but the Hungarian materials, including a full biography of Miklós Jancsó and a book of interviews with his collaborators, were an absolute goldmine, with numerous lipsmacking stories that I'd never come across in English before.