Help me find stories alluded to in Conann (2023 film)

[crawfordscat]

Hey Swords,

I'm writing a short essay on Bertrand Mandico's "Conann": an loose, excessively decorative French film that uses Conan the Cimmerian not so much as an adaption source, but as a leaping-off point to explore the director's strange aesthetic and sexual fetishes.

I'm interested in reading some of the original stories, and was hoping some Howard-heads here point me to some stories that might be relevant. (Spoilers for the film ahead).

The film casts six actresses as different incarnations of Conan from different eras, each representing a different decade of life. Each successive Conan kills the last one in order to complete the metamorphosis:

• 65yo: The oldest Conan is the first we meet, on a throne in Hell, reminiscing over her long life.
  
• 15yo: The youngest Conan is imprisoned by some warriors, and is forced to fight another for entertainment. She makes a pact with an untrustworthy demonic dog who helps her poison her captors and escape.
• 25yo: The young and handsome Conan makes out with the young Conan and then kills her with a sword.
• 35yo: The story shifts to the a present-day urban setting, where Conan is now a stuntwoman with a lover. The dog has an erotic fixation on Conan, pretends to be a stranger in need and betrays her, killing her lover.
• 45yo: Conan is now a Nazi SS Officer committing war atrocities and laughing at the absurdity of it all.
• 55yo: This Conan bursts out of the previous Conan's body like a butterfly emerging out of a Cocoon. This Conan is a wealthy, haughty artist. She invites a group of pretentious up-and-comer artists to her house and offers her own body as the meal - hence ensuring their obedience and dependence on her. One of the artists invited refused the meal and shoots up everyone else. Roll credits.

Note that this is a very loose, unfaithful adaption taking from all sorts of places and there probably aren't analogues for all these plot points in the original canon. Nonetheless, I'm curious to hear if there are any connections to the books?

[terryallenuk]

TBH only the first two might be considered , though only_very_ loosely. 1.Howard never had Conan on a throne in hell reminiscing on his life though there are stories of him as King so that's probably the closest.2. At 15 he was battling at Venarium , as for fighting for entertainment - that's closer to the 1982 Conan film. No demonic dog involved. All the rest are completely made up and nothing to do with Howard's Conan.

If you're interested in Howard's Conan check out the Del Rey book listed at howardworks.com/ballantine-delrey.html

[zarono]

I don't see anything there that brings to mind Howard's stories. From your description I would say it's only vaguely inspired by a couple of scenes from Milius's movie, the final King Conan shot and pit fighting scenes.