"Forbidden desires and dangerous intrigue generate sizzling heat in this erotic thriller! At a sexy strip club called Exotica, three strangers -- an obsessive man, an erotic table dancer, and the club's mysterious D.J. -- share much more than is apparent at first glance! As their secret passions grow, they become more deeply entangled in an inescapable web of jealousy, deceit, and revenge! The powerfully seductive hit EXOTICA is gripping entertainment -- you won't be able to take your eyes off it!"
For the last ten years I've enjoyed pointing out this movie and saying, "No, it's good. Really. No, really. It's magnificent, in fact. It's in my top three of all time. Yes, I'm being serious. Trust me. No, really. No, I'm not on drugs."
It was December of 1994 and I had just moved to Seattle and was unemployed and living in the U-District and going to the movies about once a day. I probably would never have seen this film had I not exhausted most of the other choices. I knew nothing about the film - I hadn't even seen a poster - I just noticed that it was playing at the Metro and decided to go. So I went and was totally blown away by it. It was one of those truly transformative filmgoing experiences, which, at the time, I thought were no longer possible (already well on my way to becoming permanently cynical). It was an art film, definitely, but it was far more accessible than his pretentious and impenetrable earlier work (Speaking Parts, Family Viewing, The Adjuster). Later Egoyan would make "The Sweet Hereafter" and then disappear back into obscurity, but after spending 90 minutes with Exotica Egoyan was suddenly my favorite director.
Perhaps it was his cool, detatched Canadian sensibilites, or his tightly wound plotting, or his hyperreal dialogue. I don't know. I was 24 and fully in control of my faculties, so I have no excuse.
The revelation? Exotica is, in fact, quite terrible.
I just sat down and watched it for the first time in about five years. I had to fight myself not to shut it off. It's that bad. Actually, there are still some good things going on here, but the bad things are beyond atrocious. I watched the whole thing with my mouth hanging open. How could I have been so wrong? Am I smarter or stupider or just different? Just what is going on? Are there other examples of this in my life..where I have felt so strongly about a thing only to reverse field a couple of years later? I could see people doing this on political issues, but on a film? Well, obviously the film has stayed the same so I've gone through some pretty severe changes without realizing it.
Exotica in the 90s v. Now
90s: Arty
Now: Pretentious
90s: Complex Interwoven Plot
Now: Contrived and Unbelievable Connexions Between Characters
90s: Flat and Hyperreal Mamet/Hartley Dialogue Delivery
Now: Bad and Uninvolving Performance
90s: Creative Framing
Now: Bad Cinematography
90s: Cool Flashbacks and Flashforwards!
Now: Clunk, Clunk, Clunk...
90s: Interesting, Writerly Speeches
Now: Do People Talk LIke This In Canada?
90s: Intellectual
Now: Oh, please...
90s: The Director is the Author of the Film
Now: The Director Should Stay the Fuck out of the Way B/C He's All Over Every Frame of This Thing and That's All I Can Think About While Watching It.
7 comments:
I was going to write something about Godfather, Part 2, but have decided against it as it is bound to rile people up.
So I will stick it to the French, instead: I remeber back in the day I was really stuck on French films and actually thought I liked Godard's Alphaville. I watched it a year ago (well if you call turning the movie off right about where Lemmy Caution drives his car to the planet of Alphaville, and all I could think was what in the hell is this pretentious crap. I did turn it on later to watch the ending with that funky computer, but still couldn't get past how much I had grown to loathe the movie and Godard himself. Some director's cannot get past the mirror in the morning, I think. They have to throw themselves in the film no matter what even if they aren't in front of the lense. Godard seems like that to me. Every frame shouts OOO OOO I'M JEAN-LUC GODARD. WATCH MY FILUM!
Man that feels like a confession.
I still like Truffaut, however.
Dr. Write and I watched Egoyan's "The Adjuster" about four years ago. Dr. Write couldn't stand it. I found it somewhat amusing. Egoyan is definitely a little too artsy for his own good, though. I remember liking "Exotica." You recommended it, as I recall. Should I rewatch it in order to test whether we've had a collective change in our sensibilities?
The thing I had this experience with was The Unbearable Lightness of Being--the book, not the film. I felt ineffably moved by it when I first read it, which was when I was in my 20s. I tried rereading it again maybe 15 years later and was aghast at how pretentious meta-fiction often is. I haven't been able to make myself read another of Kundera's novels.
I did, however, love the Philip Kaufman film. And hope that it will stay as good as I remember it. I also love his Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is still darn good, and also The Right Stuff.
Oh don't tell me. I too loved this film. But I loved "The Sweet Hereafter" more. I'm afraid to see it again. Has Hartley aged just as badly? Tell me no!
We just saw "Broken Flowers" and while I loved the uncomfortable scenes, I wanted resolution. Why can't these artsy-fartsy dudes give me resolution?
Twenty-five+ years ago, when I was a child, I used to love watching the t.v. series Battlestar Galactica. When the new reinvisioned series began on the Sci Fi network, I decided to watch it. I really have enjoyed the new series. It is decent adult entertainment (if you allow for the typical glaring plot problems). A few weeks ago, some of the episodes from the original series were shown on Sci Fi. Of course I was excited to see them. Oh my...I'm not a child anymore. What horrible t.v. that was...Bad acting, corny writing, cheap special effects.
Of course, my example is a bit more exaggerated than E's. We're talking about the changes from a child to almost-middle-aged adult. However, I am not surprised at all that Sleepy has changed quite a bit from his early 20's to now. I remember being very different in my early 20's. In fact, aren't people in their early 20's still children? :)
1. Yes, Godard should be thrown in the river. I went back and watched Cocteau's body of work and I was fairly intolerant of the Blood of a Poet/Orpheus trilogy, although Beauty and the Beast still rocks.
2. Yes, you could watch Exotica again. But why? Why not watch Scary Movie 4 and have some laughs instead?
3. What happened to Philip Kaufman? After the horribly racist Rising Sun (w/ Wesley Snipes) he made that Quills movie, but he's basically kind of vanished, huh?
4. I had the same reaction to Broken Flowers. I fear Hartley has also not aged well. I watched him about four years ago and it was marginal. I couldn't get passed the mannered acting and low budgetness of it all.
5. Yes, Wolf, I am still very much a child...In ten years I will look back and say, "WHAT WAS I THINKING???" It doesn't surprise me that Galactica was atrocious. But why does everything have to always age badly? Why can't things age well? Or age better? Where are the unknown movies that were ignored when they came out but only later prove to be masterpieces? Where are the skinny freckly awkward girls who turn out to be supermodels twelve years later?
Even by my low standards, I was astounded how bad Battlestar Gallactica was when I watched it last year after a friend gave me the DVD of the original movie that started it all. The old Star Treks looks positively brilliant compared to it. This, of course, made me sad as I felt some part of my childhood had been exposed as a fraud. (That's how much I loved that show; don't get me started on the 6 Million Dollar Man.)
Post a Comment