I waited a long time to watch Ensalada Baudelaire, maybe too long. I first read about it in the book Sleazoid Express by Bill Landis. I was curious, but it was a long (about 15 years) wait until I found a subtitled print.
Basically, the story is like a combination of Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water and Michael Haneke's Funny Games. There are some twists to this story, so I will be careful in my description.
A rich couple are on a day out on their yacht. He is a bit of pervert, snapping nude photos of his wife as she sleeps. She (the attractive Marina Langner) is cold, showing more love to her dog than her husband. The couple's relationship could be described as quietly strained. So, the two go out for a day alone and unwisely invite a younger, lower-class couple onto their yacht. At first, there is a sense of tension, a slight unease, to the couples' interactions (the Polanski influence). When the rich guy has had enough of the his guests, he asks them to leave. It is then that things become violent.
Here, we enter into the realm of cruelty, escalating from petty cruelty (the rich wife forced to act like a maid to the young couple) to gradually more depraved forms of violence. Some might see a Last House on the Left feel to this section of the movie, but I kept thinking Funny Games. I realize Funny Games was made a couple decades later, but both films serve up a mean stew with an arty veneer. Toward the end, Ensalada Baudelaire pulls a breaking of the fourth wall stunt that is not too far removed from the remote control scene in Funny Games. I was annoyed by that approach in both movies.
Ensalada Baudelaire is a mean movie, but one that lacks the visceral quality to push it to the realm of a horror film. Instead, Ensalada Baudelaire plays like an early Roman Polanski thriller with sharp teeth and a rather pretentious denouncement. The film did not work for me, but some (like Bill Landis) like it more.
