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Simply A Masterpiece

An Exercise In Nonsense

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

There's a moment early in the film when one of the more seasoned prostitutes of Club Happy House tells a new employee, "All men are bastards. Even the nice ones aren't nice," and everything that follows repeats the same theme without variation, striking a single note with sledgehammer finesse for nearly two hours. In between scenes of oppressed whores going about their business is an ongoing, unrelated episode showing a faceless (male) kidnapper brutalizing his helpless but noble (female) victim by chaining her to a rusted cot and taking Polaroid snapshots of her slow disintegration. Writer director Marleen Gorris certainly has a chip on her shoulder, but any criticism of her film (no matter how valid) by a member of the wrong sex runs the risk of looking like a typical knee-jerk over-reaction. Sure, and those viewers who champion the film will no doubt recommend it for its impartial wisdom and subtle artistry?

I only saw this film once, about ten years ago on SBS television in Australia, and while I can't remember many specific plot details, I can remember the impact it had on me. Its loose narrative describes the day to day life of prostitutes working in a brothel, while every so often exploring the movements of a male serial killer who seems to delight in watching women waste away. Like I said, the specifics are a bit fuzzy in my mind, but I do recall he takes photos of a woman tied to a bed over a long period of time, sticking them on a wall, forming a document of her disintegration. It sounds like another film that treats the torture of women as entertainment, but it's far from it. "Species 2" is a far more offensive piece of work (and obviously left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've recalled it here!). Gorris is clearly an intelligent film maker who is not afraid to tackle problematic ideas and concepts, and both this film and her earlier work "A Question of Silence" are essential viewing as examples of feminist cinema - as well as being provocative and intriguing works, regardless of labels.

So frightening. As a prior reviewer noted, it has a documentary feel about it. It seems so real. I saw this film at the Chicago film festival in 1984 and have never seen it played anywhere again. I would like to see it again to see if it would have the same profound effect on me as it did that first time. If you see it playing, go to see it, if you are strong of heart. Will grab you.

Critics have attempted to undermine the grim intensity of this film by claiming it adopts a "separatist" position: the only sympathetic male character is an old derelict who poses no threat to the women. One could reply that it is equally plausible that the emphasis is intended as a corrective to many films which do not inquire into the gendered nature of violence. Instead, there is a tendency to focus on the "criminal genius" locked in mental combat with heroic authority figures. "Gebroken Spiegels" differs by drawing together the almost ritualised degradation experienced by the main characters who work in a brothel, and the repetitive atrocities of a serial killer. Irrespective of differences in individual circumstance, victims are shown to have been selected for a shared defining feature. The stark realism of the film has an almost documentary feel to it, and should stimulate debate on (feminist) resources of hope in diminished circumstances: one recalls how, in "A Hand Maid's Tale", (female) sociologists and other thinkers preferred to work as exotic entertainers for an elite who liked savouring the decadent pleasures forbidden to the "masses". Critical thought would be more tolerated in these circumstances than outside, if only as a kind of forbidden "exotic fruit". "GS" offers a different, although related context, which could also be usefully compared to "Female Perversions" and Lizzie Borden's revolutionary "Born in Flames."