poetry/antipoetry & exploitation movies
my brother from another mother, jonathan hayes, recommended this movie to me & watch it ASAP as it will soon be pulled from the streaming platform Amazon Prime. okay, i say. i watched it tonight.
this flick stars asia argento as sandra, a former sex worker looking to break into some big money by any means. she is recruited by her current lover, lester, played by carl ng, to assassinate sandra's former preferred client, a wealthy business man, miles, played by michael madsen. shit, as they say, doesn't always go as planned.
why kill miles? who the fuck knows. what is lester's professional businesses? your guess is as good as mine. certainly both men are into import/export trades. what kind of goods do they trade? are they legal or are they illicit? really, it is subservient to a rather shaky plot. indeed what is primary is sandra's character as she navigates the underbellies of paris & hong kong.
marketed as a neo-sexual-noir thriller there is plenty of kink in the first half of this flick. madsen does a pretty good attempt at a slimy kinda dude as miles, a man who keeps his sexual accoutrements like handcuffs in the cabinet drawers in his living room. sandra mumbles the first half of the movie playing the sexy vixen. & she is sexy, no doubt about it. makes me think that the writer/director, olivier assayas, crafted the movie to showcase argento's magnetic sexuality.
but does that work. in a way. i didn't turn the pic off even as i was suffering thru some gawd-awful dialogue between miles & sandra. assayas' shaky camera work did not heighten the erotic tension either. rather this film is photographed in an art school kind of fashion where the filmmaker is bragging to all & sundry, see i know cinema.
but it wasn't until sandra kills miles that this movie picks up speed. & sandra's character rises above a passive player in her own life into a person who takes charge of her own life. in short, this neo-noir thriller really kicks into higher gear when it stops being an erotic thriller & becomes a crime thriller. oh, kelly lin, who plays lester's wife, sue, is wonderful. i was hoping that this flick had more of sue in it than sandra. & another surprise cameo of a sort is kim gordon. yes, that kim gordon of sonic youth. she plays kay, an enigmatic businesswoman in hong kong who gives sandra some vital help.
in the end, sandra grows up, a bit. does she get what she wanted, namely the big score? we are left with a final image that answers that question, without giving away any plot, yes & no. it is clear olivier assayas is a talented filmmaker. asia argento is magnetic in anything she is in. michael madsen is well michael madsen in that i expected him to bust out reciting a bukowski poem while downing a bottle of chivas. kelly lin was fantastic in the small role she was given. carl ng was okay. kim gordon was a bit of confusion for her being in this movie. but the score, by brian eno, with a concluding song by the LA band sparks, was killer. in short, not a bad exploitation flick after all.
i wanna be a good poet no wait i wanna be a bad poet no wait i wanna be a good bad poet no wait i wanna be a bad good poet no wait i wanna be a cool poet no wait i wanna be an uncool poet no wait i wanna be an uncool cool poet no wait i wanna be a cool uncool poet no wait i wanna be a bad good good bad uncool cool cool uncool poet no wait i really wanna be the fonz
