When I watched this 25 years ago I developed
such a crush on Elina Lowensohn, but I never followed it up with any of her
other films. She sort of disappeared from my viewing choices with her appearances
in mainly small or foreign films that my video rental stores never stocked.
But seeing this again I felt the same way about her - her Lulu hairstyle,
eyes like dark impenetrable pools of sadness, the crooked nose, the lipsticked
Picasso mouth, the studied profiled looks off into the distance, the Romanian
accent is mesmerizing. And that is with Isabelle Huppert in the same film
and Huppert is rather amazing here as well. Director Hal Hartley gives his
actors a huge amount of room to simply act freestyle and it is a pleasure
to watch them think their performances through.
For years I have been meaning to see more
of his films that come as close to auteur as you can make in these crass
commercial times. He writes and often produces the small quirky films he
directs. I hope this is the impetus I need because this is such a wonderful
off-center film that touches on karma, God, pornography, hired killers and
empathy gone wrong with a wicked sense of deadpan humor. The film thrives
on dialogue - absurdist whimsical dialogue that feels like it is from some
other dimension and yet in its setting it makes sense somehow. It spins around
your head and you think I wish people spoke like this in the real world.
Uncluttered and to the point with no false pretenses. The story of course
is just as absurd and feels like a noir urban fairy tale without a happy
ending.
Thomas (Martin Donovan) comes out of unconsciousness
on a cobble stone alley in New York City bleeding from a head injury and
no idea who he is or how he got there. Memory wiped out. Man reborn. He wanders
into a coffee shop where Isabelle (Huppert) is trying to write a pornographic
short story that is eventually declined for not having any sex in it. Not
surprising in that she is a virgin just recently out of the nunnery looking
for her purpose in life. She takes Thomas home where she confesses that she
is a nymphomaniac. How can you be a nymphomaniac if you are a virgin. I am
choosy, she replies. She gives him pornographic magazines which he carries
around with him and reads on park benches. Huppert is such a good actress
that when she talks about how hungry she is I began to feel pangs of hunger
and had to go munch on something.
Enter into the picture Sofia (Elina) wandering
around the city with no apparent place to go. That is because she pushed
Thomas out of her window and thinks she killed him. It is slowly revealed
through her that Thomas was not a nice man and forced her into pornography
and beat her. She thinks she has an opportunity to blackmail Thomas's money
men - big mistake - they want Thomas dead and now Sofia too - not to
mention Edward (Damian Young) who was Thomas's accountant and knows too much.
Two killers - ex-accountants who have been promoted - come to kill them all
and talk and act like mid-level salarymen who need receipts for meals they
have. They take two wires and fry Edward's brains deranging him into a brilliant
memorable performance.
Even 25 years later the film feels innovative,
clever, smart and fresh - offbeat and strange and yet poignant and funny
at the same time. It lives in its own small world.
