Synopsis
Screenplay by Vicky Davis, based on the novel by Andre Brink.
Directed by Hein De Vos.
Orgie is a South African feature film, adapted for the screen from the controversial novel by internationally-acclaimed writer André Brink.
A universal love story characterised by betrayal and fatal consequence, revealing the irreparable damage lovers inflict under the guise of love.
The story:
Philip, a married history professor, and Sophia, a talented actress reputed for her reckless lifestyle, who met the previous year, find themselves at a decadent masked ball celebrating the return of spring. Their relationship is at a crossroads – reality has caught up with their blissful secret affair, and they both know in order for their relationship to last, drastic choices will have to be made.
With this in mind, Philip, alone at his little table at the heaving hedonistic party, remembers Annette, his emotionally absent wife. Sophia, alone in the festive whirlpool, dancing with all the masked guests, is searching for her previous lover, a famous poet, aptly named X.
X abandoned Sophia a year earlier after she fell pregnant with his child and due to his insistence, had it aborted.
Now Sophia has demanded that Philip leave his wife and have a child with her in a desperate act to regain a reason for living. Unable to act on his underlying passions, Philip cannot commit to a life with this disturbed, yet inspiring muse. At the same time, he cannot let her go, which in turn causes Sophia to feel the desire to return to X.
Throughout the course of the night, Philip becomes increasingly frustrated and desperate for her attention as Sophia realises the inevitability of their break-up.
A friend informs Sophia of X’s return from a year abroad, and that he might be present at the ball. She searches frantically for X amongst the masked partygoers and indulges wildly as the evening progresses. Philip sits, jealous and brooding, at his little table near the dance floor as Sophia spitefully works the room with increasingly flirtatious abandon.
From time to time they engage in volatile discussions, reliving the episodes of their past and the year gone by (their individual childhoods, interactions with X and Annette, shared intimate moments) only to realise the apparent hopelessness of their future together.
It becomes clear to Philip that Sophia is a tormented woman, yearning for a way out of a life in which she has found no destiny or purpose. (Philip had saved her from an attempted suicide soon after they met, forging a deep bond between them).
When Philip eventually succumbs to the idea of leaving Annette and giving Sophia a child, she, not having found X and completely intoxicated and delusional, abandons all control and is carried off by a stranger, who violently takes advantage of her in the garden outside. Sophia’s sudden exit with the stranger brings Philip to a mental breakpoint that leaves him emotionally depleted.
At the break of dawn, as the party draws to a close, Philip discovers Sophia lying semi-conscious and naked in a flowerbed.
After the umpteenth betrayal, the only thing left for Philip to do is to pass judgment and offer Sophia the salvation she so desperately seeks. As a final act of love, Philip strangles her to death - more a mercy killing than a crime of passion.
Orgie is rich with reference to myth, legend and ancient tradition, echoing and commenting on the relationships at stake. It is mainly through animation that these mythical elements are incorporated, but also through scenes where Philip is lecturing history to his students or telling these ‘bed-time stories’ to Sophia.
The masked ball, an ‘orgy’ of lust, obsession and frivolous indulgence, together with Sophia’s desire for purity and Philip’s sacrificial murder, is ironically juxtaposed with referrals to old Babylonian myth - festivals of sacrifice, death and reincarnation.
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