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Purely Joyful Movie!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I wrote a review on this non-movie many years ago when IMDb was new but for some reason the review has been removed. A man sitting behind a desk in a garage talking about his bit part in another movie does not a movie make. I do not understand how this can be classified as a comedy / drama as it is neither. With the exception of some clips from The Killing Fields the entire movie consists of a humorless man babbling on and on about nothing. No entertainment value at all and very difficult to watch. My advise is that if you have the urge to watch this movie slam you hand in a car door instead, it will be less painful than watching this non- movie.

Spalding Gray calls his version of performance art a "talking cure." The facts, opinions, insights, fears and hopes drawn from the epiphany he received from his experiences in the Asian Rim shooting "The Killing Fields" and his education of the plight of the Cambodian people circa early to mid seventies is overwhelming. This is a story of the human condition as told by a master. He is Dr. Frankenstein creating the monster that is ourselves through a tapestry of wordplay that never seems overwrought or cumbersome in the slightest. This movie is one man reading from a standard notebook, behind a plain table accented with a glass of water and shadowed by a ceiling fan and selection of maps. Demme's use of lighting and Laurie Anderson's soundtrack provide all the dramatic power needed to sustain Gray as he literally helps us all better understand life, humanity and our responsibilities to each other while we spend time on this planet. Intense, funny, heartbreaking and invigorating; this movie inspires and changes all who watch it.

"Swimming to Cambodia" is an amazing piece of work. One of Spalding Gray's monologue pieces, it features him taking a story that seems like it should have been only mildly interesting and turning it into poetry. Directed by the incomparable Johnathan Demme and featuring music by the brilliant and eccentric Laurie Anderson, Gray recounts his experiences in the filming of "The Killing Fields." Gray's words tell of bizarre, disturbing, exciting and moving experiences in exotic locales. His words move from beautiful to disgusting, hopeful to horrifying, and always with a masterful lyricism that places him as one of the absolute masters of the English language! The book (published 1985) is supposed to be a great read, but the film of Gray himself telling the stories is an experience beyond compare. Spalding Gray's genius will be greatly missed.

This movie is totally amazing, one long, mind-blowing story that is by turns riotously funny and utterly chilling. It will restore your faith in the power of a single human being to transport the audience to a whole new place, time, and mind using just WORDS.