Exotica
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Movie Reviews of Exotica
Movie Review: More of a woman's POV movie than might be expected
Summary: 5 Stars
Atom Egoyan's Exotica is an outstanding movie. I have seen Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997) which is also very good. A father's (obsessive) love for his daughter(s) is featured in both movies, consequently the theme must mean something special to Egoyan. He is a most talented and original movie maker, a Canadian as are his players, Bruce Greenwood, (Francis Brown, the accountant whose daughter was murdered), Sarah Polley, (Tracey, the high school girl), and Mia Kirshner, (Christina, the exotic dancer). His wife, Arsinee Khanjian and Polley were also featured in The Sweet Hereafter.
What really makes the movie is Egoyan's use of time and action sequence. He cuts up the chronological order of events and then presents them in a dramatic way. This is not so easy to do. Christopher Nolan in Memento (2000) used the same technique to great advantage. I have come late to such a technique and would love to master it myself. I worked on it last year and a couple of years before. You can't just scissor it and then paste it back together. Something must be gained from reversing the order of events. When Eric and Christina are shown walking the fields in a long line of people I jumped to the conclusion that Tracey would be found dead. We don't learn that Francis lost his daughter until the film is nearly finished.
The psychology of Francis and the young girls is interesting. Christina says she gave something to him and he gave something to her. This vagueness with its unmistakable sexuality is something that always exists between young girls and older men. And, as Egoyan observes, there are rules and awkwardness, and confused emotions. However the girl wants it made unmistakably clear that she is desired physically and just talk is almost never sufficient. She often doesn't know whether she really wants to be "taken" fully, and of course that is usually, shall we say, problematic. Some great subtly is required in handled such a theme, and Egoyan realizes that. His character Francis Brown is content with fantasy and does not touch at all.
This film would have found a larger audience except for the title, the theme, and the milieu. The female audience for the most part didn't even consider watching the movie since, as one woman said, I thought it was just another movie with an older man lusting after a girl half his age. That theme bores women to death. But surprisingly at the IMDb a viewer asks how women feel about the film and several write in to say that they liked it. Another poster remarks that women over forty actually liked Exotica in higher percentages than males.
I thought the veracious and business-like depiction of the exotic dancer club was well done. The very nice side plot with the gay animal importer was just a perfect fit for the main plot. Egoyan wrote the script. It is a great script. So much surprises. It's almost too good. For me, since I have seen so many, many movies, something different, some surprises in plot, in character, in treatment are always welcome.
And the plot does surprise. Even when the protagonist, Francis waits outside the club to shoot Eric, Egoyan turns the situation on its head by having Eric appear from the side and explain something that changes Francis's attitude toward him.
I am being vague because I don't want to spoil the story. Some movies--most movies I would say, since I go back to the generation that would go into the theatre and sit down during the middle of the movie; and then four or five hours later, realize, "This is where I came in"--in most movies to know the ending or the plot would not spoil the movie. We know so and so dies at the end. What is interesting is how he dies, how the actions develops. But in this movie to know the plot would take something away.
I think. I'm not sure. Anyway Francis is a tax auditor who lost his daughter when she was less than eight years old. She was murdered. The police initially thought he did it, but he was found innocent and the murderer was apprehended and convicted. But Francis is left hollow and tries to bring her back in a way by having teenage girls "babysit" his nonexistent daughter. Egoyan teases us near the beginning by showing Francis and Tracey in his car as he drops her off at her home giving her some money and asking, "Are you free Thursday?" Very near the end of the movie we find that Tracey had a precursor in that babysitting role. You might be able to guess who it was.
The sound track features "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen.
Movie Review: A Phenomenal But Unexpectedly Nonerotic Film
Summary: 5 Stars
This was easily one of the best films made in the 1990s, but it has to be strongly emphasized that it is not a sex film. The movie is not about sex, but about relationships, and the bizarre and wildly unexpected ways our lives can criss-cross each other. The movie does not have a fraction of the intended sexual content of a movie like BASIC INSTINCT or SHOWGIRLS. If someone rents EXOTICA expecting to be titillated, they are going to be severely disappointed. On the other hand, if you want a film that will challenge you intellectually, this is your flick.The movie is best seen two or more times. The plot is not incoherent, as some writing here have found it, but complex. And part of the job of a re-viewing is seeing all the subtle ways the lives of the different characters are bound up with the lives of the other principle characters. Gradually we are given more and more information about the characters, and when we receive the last bits in the final seconds of the movie, the effect, at least for me, is staggering.
The acting is superb. Bruce Greenwood, a staple of Atom Egoyen films, is marvelous as the accountant. His character is also the hardest to figure out. It is only near the very end of the movie when we have enough evidence of what has happened to him that we are able to understand what makes him tick. Mia Kirshner is good in her role as the stripper in the club who has a very unusual relationship with the account. Again, the dynamics of their connection is not explained until the very last shot in the film. But the kudos for the most impressive job in this film goes to the tragically underrated and underappreciated Elias Koteas, as the club DJ and estranged boyfriend of the stripper. In most films, Koteas has only a very small role to work with, such as LIVING OUT LOUD (where he plays "the kisser" [check the credits! that's his character's name!] the man Holly Hunter meets very briefly on the back landing of a nightclub) or as the morally conflicted captain who is relieved of his duty for showing too much concern for the well-being of his men in THE THIN RED LINE. EXOTICA gives us a hint of what he could do with more significant roles.
EXOTICA has one of the most surreal scenes I have ever seen: Mia Kirshner dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, signing in American Sign Language the lyrics of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows", while she does a strip dance (again, not as sexy as it might sound).
So, while not even remotely a sex film, this is an exceptionally complex and intelligent one about the intricacies of human relationships. In closing I would like to agree with the reviewer who found the cover of the video/DVD to be horrid. It seriously misrepresents the nature of the film. This is very much an "art" film, not an erotic one.
Movie Review: A Classic Tale of Fallen Angels
Summary: 5 Stars
The set up for "Exotica" is similar to all of Atom Egoyan's films: a situation that brings characters colliding into each other, mostly quiet and subtly, in classic Canadian restraint. They collide in the most peculiar locations and situations. In "The Adjuster", Elias Koteas plays a man who donates his house to a family that has lost their lives to a seemingly tragic fire only to suffer same the fate of his clients that he puts his own family's lives on the line for.In Exotica, Koteas plays a college radio dj turned strip club announcer. And Egoyan chooses to portray the descent from innocence eloquently through flashbacks. Mychael Danna's score provides an integral emotional lift and feeling of hope to the scenes between Eric and Christina. This contrasts sharply with the exotic Indian Hindi vocals that relentlessly accompany the strippers as they disrobe.
The depth of expression is conveyed as simply as Eric flicking a light on and off until the reason is not there. Over the vocal track you hear the regret in his voice, "I just need to find a structure. I feel like the days just slip away." There is a slight vein of philosophy throughout most of Egoyan's films. The man is so intellectual, he could not create a philosophically devoid film if his life depended on it (though he did have a stint as a director on tv with "Friday the 13th" and "The Twilight Zone")
Though some of the acting is a bit wooden, as is the case with most Canadian films (and actors ie. Keanu), the glimmer of the gem here is the ethereal heaven and occupational hell that Egoyan pours focused expression into. He takes a lot of care into creating flawed but sympathetic characters that may appear deranged on the surface, but slowly we are shown the pieces that have unraveled them. And the payoff is eery but appropriate for the tone of this film. If you like Egoyan's style, I highly recommend "Speaking Parts" and "Felicia's Journey". "The Sweet Hereafter" falls in the category of a less personal novel adaptation, opposed to the originally written Exotica.
Movie Review: "You Have To Ask Yourself What Brought The Person To This Point?"
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an undiscovered gem of a film with an incredibly inventive and powerful script that is sure to suprise and please. 'Exotica', a "Gentleman's Club", is the focal point of a world in search of meaning. Men come not just to watch beautiful women sensually dance in various stages of undress. They come to forget, however briefly, the pain and suffering they have experienced in the world outside.
Christina (Mia Kirshner) and Eric (Elias Koteas) work at the club, Christina as a dancer, Eric as the DJ. As the customers watch the enchanting Christina perform on-stage and privately, Eric watches the customers watch her. As you might have guessed, while moods and emotions are generally muted and controlled within the confines of Exotica they are forever on the verge of breaking through the illusory nature created and sustained by alcohol and sexual stimulation. There are untold stories to be brought into the light of day and only when the truth is known will the many tangled relationships and reasons for being there finally make sense.
Director Atom Egoyan has conjoured up a place outside of time and space, a purgatorial oasis where all regrets, memories and hopes converge into the incessant drone of the music and the tantalizing movements of the dancers. Truly a stunning vision that will stay with the viewer for quite sometime. Definitely not a film for everyone, 'Exotica' deals with adult situations and contains numerous scenes of nudity and some mild homosexuality. However this thoughtful, probing tale ultimately transcends most of the dark, depressing elements and offers a ray of hope and forgiveness. If you're the adventureous type who is looking for something different 'Exotica' is definitely the film for you.
Mia Kirshner and Elias Koteas (two of my favorite actresses/actors) are fantastic. Also wonderful performances by Bruce Greenwood, Don McKellar, Arsinee Khanjian and a young Sarah Polley.
Movie Review: Multi-layered, haunting piece of film mastery.
Summary: 5 Stars
While Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan may be best known for his sweeping, 1997 adaptation of Russel Banks' novel The Sweet Hereafter (for which he was nominated for a best directing Oscar), Exotica vastly surpasses Hereafter in its deeply layered secrets and complexity. "You have to convince yourself that this person has something hidden, that you have to find yourself," states a character at the beginning of the film. Each of these characters--the DJ of Club Exotica (Elias Koteas), the pregnant owner of the club (Egoyan's wife Arsinee Khanjian), the mysterious, school girl dancer (Mia Kirshner), her most frequent customer (Bruce Greenwood), and the lonely owner of an exotic pet store (Don McKellar)--has something hidden, deep within the interactions between each other and the non-linear storytelling of Exotica, which multiple viewings enhance to even greater detail.After winning many Genie Awards (the Canadian equivelant of the American Oscar) including best director and picture, as well as being hailed as a "Miramax Classic" on the box, one would think that the DVD would be filled with lots of added bonuses, and at the very least: a theatrical trailer. Alas, the Exotica DVD boasts no special features, if you don't count the gorgeous widescreen transfer, much to my own dismay.
Since many critics praised the film when it was released in 1994, especially Roger Ebert, there is hope that a new DVD will be created. The Criterion Collection includes numerous foreign, avant-garde, cultish films on DVD, most all of them boasting quite a few, excellent special features (especially the sadly-out-of-print Sid & Nancy DVD; but not for the feature-less Night Porter disc). One would hope, with the support of a few major critics and strong following, that Mirimax (or Criterion) would release a new version of this DVD, featuring all the added features, commentaries, bios that the film rightfully deserves.