In a Dutch colony in the Far East, Dr Holk ekes out a solitary existence catering to the needs of the natives whilst frittering away his earnings on gambling and alcohol. So oppressive is the climate in this tropical hell hole that, from time to time, one of natives is overtaken by a murderous frenzy and begins attacking his fellows. Holk is attending to one such native, shot down after going berserk during a religious ceremony, when a French woman suddenly appears and asks for his help. Holk, who has not seen a white woman for five years, is unnerved by the stranger's request and at first declines to treat her, even when she offers him a generous fee. As the woman hurries back to her car, offended by this rejection, Holk is suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to serve her. From a handbag she dropped in her haste, he learns that she is Hélène Haviland, the wife of a wealthy merchant. He then discovers the reason for her visit: she is pregnant by her lover and requires an abortion to avoid a scandal. Like a man possessed, Holk makes repeated attempts to speak to Hélène, but she refuses to have anything to do with him. When Holk threatens to expose her secret, Hélène realises that she has no choice but to see him, and maybe put him out of his misery...
        
        Stefan Zweig's 1922 short story Der Amokläufer (a.k.a. Amok) is given a suitably torrid rendering in this deliriously intense piece of exotica from Russian film director Fyodor Otsep. Amok was the third of five films that Otsep made during his short but fruitful stay in France, having made a name for himself in his native Russia and then pre-Nazi Germany. On the strength of his impressive Dostoevsky adaptation The Brothers Karamazov (1931), Otsep came to be regarded as one of Pathé-Natan's star directors and was able to place great demands on the studio's resources for his subsequent films, which included a sumptuous adaptation of Pushkin's The Queen of Spades. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Amok, which boasts one of the most impressive jungle sets in film history, a lavish construction which (from its long, ominous opening tracking shot) appears to extend forever and adds much to the sweaty, oppressive mood of the piece (aided by an eerily atmospheric score from Karol Rathaus).
        
        Released at a time when films set in exotic locations were all the rage, Amok could hardly fail to be a huge international success. Its popularity bought Otsep his ticket to Hollywood, although he only made one film there (the all-but forgotten Three Russian Girls) and ended his career in Canada before his premature death fron a heart attack in 1949. The two subsequent adaptations of Zweig's novella, a 1944 Mexican version starring María Félix and a 1993 Franco-German version with Fanny Ardant, scarcely bear comparison with Otsep's arresting, noir-like masterwork, which deserves to be far better known than it currently is.
        
        A star of the Comédie-Française, Jean Yonnel plays the part of the tortured Dr Holk wit