Snakes on Film

La Vouivre is a 1989 French film adaptation of the 1945 novel by Marcel Aymé which tells the tale of the descent into madness of a World War I veteran who sees, or believes he sees, la Vouivre, a folkloric creature from eastern France that changes shape from a woman to a snake and back. (For more on the mythology, see L’Œil de la Vouivre by Edith Montelle.) The movie is unavailable in North America, which is too bad, because the nudity is really good.

Vipers (Vipera berus) abound in the movie — they’re caught by children in jars and play an all-too predictable part in the climactic scene. The snakes looked real enough, if I recall (I saw the movie on French television in 1999), but it’s likely that they used one of the European water snakes of the Natrix genus — specifically, the Viperine Snake (Natrix maura), a viper mimic.