ISABEL

"A remarkable and fascinating movie" (Wendy Michener, The Globe and Mail). The winner of four top prizes at the 1968 Canadian Film Awards, Paul Almond's debut feature was also voted one of the ten best films of the year by several US critics. ISABEL bears the passionate imprint of a genuine auteur; Almond's cool, idiosyncratic vision immediately drew critical comparisons to a diverse group of masters - Bergman, Resnais, Dreyer, Hitchcock - and received electric reviews (Time magazine raved, calling it "an eye-spinning shocker that massages the heart while icing down the spine !"). The film's narrative unfolds through an elliptical stream of haunting episodes, suffused with foreboding and a conflated sense of past, present, and future. Isabel leaves Montréal and returns to her family's farm in the Gaspé Peninsula after learning of her mother's serious illness. There the demons of a repressed family history rise to torment her. ISABEL is partly "a pellucid visualisation in internalized, psychic repression" (Peter Morris) and partly a ghost story. Almond's reluctance to situate ISABEL's narrative in either the realm of the fantastic or the real infuriated many critics. Nevertheless, this stylistic choice is clearly one of the great attributes of this landmark work.

CinemathequeOntario, November 2000

NEW YORK - Canadian director Paul Almond has done well by his actress-wife Genevieve Bujold. He has given her one of the more exciting film vehicles of the year, a story of fear and sexual inhibition in a young woman. He as astonishingly good at creating tension.

“THE EVENING NEWS, NEWARK - Wednesday, July 24, 1968

 By BRUCE BAHRENBURG “

Time Magazine

"Actress Genevieve Bujold is a charmer! Writer-Director Paul Almond is a cinemagician! In 'Isabel' they have created an eye-spinning shocker that massages the heart while icing down the spine!"

WCBS Radio

"Stunning! Great Reality! Genevieve Bujold plays the girl with tremendous sensitivity and she is fascinating to watch!” A GEM OF HIGH QUALITY!"
-DAVID GOLDMAN

WINS Radio

"Triumphant! Startling! Exquisite! This is a beautifully conceived movie that you can't afford to miss. Superbly fashioned by Paul Almond. Miss Bujold who spells excitement, crosses the magic line into super starsville. If you love movies, you have to love 'lsabel'!"
-BOB SALMAGGI

Ladies' Home Journal

"I call it brilliant! Genevieve Bujold stars in this stunning film written and directed by her husband, Paul Almond. It’s a chiller!"
-GENE SHALIT

N.Y. Post

"A picture of superior quality! Director Almond is civilized, intelligent and very aware of what modern cinema is doing!"
-ARCHER WINSTEN

Women's Wear Daily

"An outstanding achievement! 'Isabel' has been beautifully realized as a work of cinema art. Faultlessly photographed! A thrilling work of cinematography

Cue Magazine

“Suspenseful, haunting film! Among the most effective we have seen this year. Maximum tensions! Almond’s style is akin to the mood and insight of a Bergman film and to the suspense techniques of Roman Polanski. One can watch the exquisite Genevieve Bujold without tiring of her!”
-WILLIAM WOLF

Hartford Times “A rare adventure of terror and beauty! Mr. Almond dazzles us constantly! The most avant of avant-garde. May remind you of 'The Fox', Repulsion and some of the best of Hitchcock. Mr. & Mrs. Almond (lovely star, Genevieve Bujold) have jumped into the front rank of contemporary film makers!”
-BERNARD L. DREW

N.Y. Daily News “Tantalizing suspenseful! It bears sly resemblance to ‘The Fox’ and more than a hint of Alfred Hitchcock. I can’t imagine anyone being able to resist Miss Bujold’s charm. Almond, a gifted director, can convey fear and suspense so powerfully there were moments when this reviewer could hear her heart pounding!”
KATHLEEN CARROLL

The big news is from Paramount this week. In their quest for new directors, they've come up with a dandy. His name is Paul Almond, who is also the writer, producer and director of "Isabel", an extraordinary film which stars his wife, Genevieve Bujold.

"Isabel" is a gem-like masterpiece of suspense, which brilliantly portrays a young girl's descent into madness.

It concerns a young woman who returns to her home town on Canada's grim Gaspe coast for the funeral of her mother. She stays on to care for her uncle in a forbidding old house which seems to be haunted by her late mother, father, younger brother, and mother's lover. Their ghosts haunt her to the peak of insanity which seems so total at the film's end that you're sure she will never recover from it.

The direction by Almond is awesome and frightening. Miss Bujold's terror-filled eyes made my blood run cold and I felt tears of fear cascading down my cheeks during many of Isabel's hallucinations.

Almond has arranged a near-rape scene in a barn and its aftermath, a violent fist fight, with such cinematic skill that you feel you are watching a nightmare from which you would like to awaken. It was a stroke of genius to include the actual citizens of the Canadian village among the professional actors.

Their inclusion heightens the sense of realism considerably and produces light and shade between isabel's apparitions and the starkly down-to-earth actuality of her surroundings. Almond's camera speaks eloquently in silence while Miss Bujold speaks her fear pathetically in sound.

The film editing and the use of color to suggest the drabness of the house and countryside around are relentless in their pursuit of tension.

Paramount has discovered a many-faceted talent in director Almond. It's his first film and I await his future work with breathless anticipation...

NEW YORK DAILY COLUMN - Thursday, July 25, 1968

'ISABEL' - JEWEL OF A FILM

By BEN BAGLEY