Exotica

I can't remember seeing a film as intriguing, complex, and beautifully photographed as "Exotica." I nearly didn't watch it because the video cover advertized it as an "erotic thriller" and the image on the front is of Mia Kirchner doing her strip-tease bit. Granted, "Exotica" centers around a "gentleman's club" of the same name, but to call this film a simple erotic thriller is to miss out on a lot, on too much.

"Exotica" follows four seemingly unrelated storylines: a man sitting alone at a table in a strip club, another man smuggling exotic parrot eggs into the country ("Exotica" takes place in and around Toronto), two apparent strangers walking in a field of green, and a young girl who plays a flute in an empty house. Egoyan begins with these vastly different puzzle pieces then slowly, inexorably brings them together.

Atom Egoyan is one heck of a masterful director. He is the epicenter of this cinematic symphony that leads carefully from movement to movement until the finale bursts forth in equal measure of catharsis, discovery, and tragedy. Plot to him is like tapestry weaving. He threads narrative, characters, time, and setting in such complicated iterations that one is at once nearly overwhelmed by the intricacy and awed at his skill, a testament to his brilliance as well as his belief that a film-going audience is actually intelligent.

At it's heart, "Exotica" is a tragedy of circumstances. Or better yet, a collision of tragedies of circumstances. Indeed, the film isn't so much about tragedy as it is about those who survive tragedy and the toll a single event can exact for the rest of the lives of those who survive. Exotica, the gentleman's club, serves merely as a focal point where all these individual tragedies radiate to.

Equally haunting in all this is the music. Mychael Danna's score sets the film's tone: dark, "exotic," deceptively simple but savvier than it lets on. Also worthy of note is the music in the club itself, a blend of American house funk and Middle Eastern tones, warbled in Arabic.

I highly recommend this film. Ignore the naked women who sashay from time to time in front of the screen (difficult as that may be at times) in the scenes shot in the club. The really interesting stuff occurs at the margins of the film, as the gulf separating the storylines begin to vanish, and the final scene gives you the keystone to a horrifying clear vision of a sadness so overwhelming that no one in the film escapes unscathed.

Atom Egoyan is a man who will soon win an Academy Award for Best Director in the next few years. After seeing The Sweet Hereafter, I rented Exotica, having heard that it's the best, if not his most signature piece of work- and WHAT a movie- this movie doesn't let you get away with falling asleep, loosing concentration, or anything like that. It makes you THINK, forces you to go scene by scene in a way that is utterly spellbinding. The nudity is a little shocking at first but dealing with its subject matter, for the 'art', so to speak, it's understandable. One of the best films of 1994, without a doubt.

The way that Egoyan intermingles different symbols, cuts back and forth through time, uses repeated imagery, and, at some points, holds back with severely limited dialogue, paints films that capture what it's like to live and remember and be alive. We watch the film, not knowing throughout the whole thing at least 80% of what the hell is going on during the scene, because we understand that the film is a kind of puzzle that'll be pieced together with time. That sense of unknowing- not knowing everything about the characters, not knowing everything, just yet, of what's happening- makes Egoyan's films, and certainly Exotica, some of the most mentally stimulately movies in cinematic history.

All in all Egoyan should of won Best Director in 1997, not Cameron, and this film definately deserved a best screenplay nod in 1994. I'll leave you with a potent piece of dialouge from the film, via Bruce Greedwood and Sarah Polley-

"Tracey- do you ever get the feeling that you didn't ask to be here on earth?"

"What?"

"I mean- no one ASKED that we be brought here. So the question is- who's asking us to stay?"

Just seen this for the second time. First time I saw it (about a year ago), I wasn't really sure what to make of it, but there were scenes from it (when Elias Koteas reveals why his connection to the disturbed and grieving father and the scene with the father and his daughter's babysitter at the end) that have always stuck in my mind.

A very haunting and beautiful movie (even though it gives a very unpleasant view of life), with a haunting snake charm style score and starring the brilliant Elias Koteas (from "Crash") and the lovely Mia Kirshner (from early first season "24" and "The Crow: City Of Angels"). Victor Garber (Sidney's dad in "Alias") also has a couple of scenes. Not to many tastes but very rewarding if you can appreciate it (although it's sense of detachment probably puts off a lot of people).

It seems to me to explore the theme of people trying to connect, in a very insular and ultimately unfulfilling way (the young gay man who goes to the ballet every night and gives away his "extra ticket" for companionship or the grieving father who pays a young girl to "babysit" his empty house so that he can have the illusion his daughter is still around for example), and also the theme of loss (variously of loved ones, innocence, youth, opportunity etc). The Exotica strip club seems such hollow place but at the same time it seems almost understandable that it would draw hapless souls night after night with nowhere else to go. Some of the dialogue seems poetic, cynical and truthful all at the same time. A film that you really need to watch to the end before you really feel you understand it's puzzle (and even then there seems to be something just out of grasp this viewing). A moving portrait of life that will linger in your mind afterwards.

I liked the first half of this movie but it left me cold at the end. There were far too many questions left unanswered. And it wasn't as if the writer had any answers, he obviously did not. This movie was a disappointment. It was all show with no subtance. I expect more.

There are movies that leave you wondering what happens next, after the movie ends. This is not one of those kind of movies. Have you ever left a movie and wondered what happened to the characters later? The next day you are still trying to play it out in your imagination, did they turn right or left? Did they live happily ever after? Or not. "Who cares anyway?" is the feeling I have about this movie. I watched the first half of the movie on the 4th of July. The fireworks interrupted my viewing. On the 5th of July, I was filled with antisipation. So many senerios, so many deeper meanings. What happened?

The ending was disappointing. It left me feeling cheated (but not in a good way). Some movies fool you into believing one truth but showing the truth to be the Big Lie. Deep. True. This movie turned out to be a stupid lie. Not deep. Not true. Just a lie.

Loose threads? What is mysterious about loose threads that have fogotten how to sew? You might ask "How can a thread forget how to sew? For that matter, how can a thread even "know" how to forget anything? A "thread" doesn't even have a brain!" But I'm sure this clever directer thought he could imagine a way to fool naive audiences into beleiving that even a snowball has a chance in hell. No, it doesn't.

If that doesn't make sence to you, get used to it. Niether does this movie. All threads are left loose, without rhyme or reason. This is not a movie to contemplate the various endings that might have taken place. There are no "might've, could've, would've or should've" moments in this movie because, quite frankly, you know by the end of the movie that random bits of "seemingly meaningless" information were not so "seemingly" after all. In fact, they were only "meaningless".

I know it's hip to be confusing, but the real world is random enough for me. Give me something to care about in a movie. Let me care enough about a character to daydream the next day about what "might have been" or about what is still yet to come. But don't tell me not to want to care.

Have a point. Make a point. Think about it. Don't "just do it".

This movie appears to be a deep movie . But it doesn't even make sense. There is something beyond twisted in the main character's obsession with a stripper (who used to babysit for the his child). Oh, by the way, she happens to be wearing the same uniform of the murdered little girl. And the father is obsessed with his ex-babysitter. Somehow, it soothes him to go to the seedy strip joint and "test" the little tart. This is so insulting to any real murdered-child's father. As I watched this movie, I hoped my cousin, who's daughter really was murdered, doesn't accidentally see this movie. The notion of a grieving father watching a re-inactment of an "innocent little girl" played by his own daughter's ex-babysitter is nauseating. The fact that we weren't even given a reason for the depravity is even more disenchanting and far-fetched. Oh yeah. She wasn't praised as a child and he wants to fill that need. They need to need each other in a sick way. We are supposed to care about these weirdos? I think not. How arrogant.

'Exotica' is clearly Egoyan's best film and his most successful presentation of the motifs that have characterized his films throughout his career; these include the presentation of the narrative out of chronological order, the interaction of characters by means of videotape and hidden surveillance, the relationship between parent and child, and the repetition of situation and dialogue. The film's theme involves the superficial barriers-both physical and psychological-that prevent people from making a genuine emotional connection with others; as we watch the film we witness how various people react to these barriers and struggle to break them down. The film's strong emphasis on structure and focus on Thomas' and Francis' parallel 'hunts' for human contact can't help but remind of that masterpiece of medieval literature 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' (this is a work that Egoyan was born to adapt to the screen). In my opinion each of the film's six major characters parallels another to compile three pairs. The first pair of characters is composed of Thomas and Zoe. The most obvious similarity between these two is that each owns one of the film's two principle locations. Thomas' pet store and Zoë's strip-club are comparable in that both are businesses whose principle merchandise is living creatures that are excessively displayed so as to persuade the customer to make a purchase. Moreover, while the pet store is lined with glass cages and fish-tanks, the walls of the strip-club are composed of two-way mirrors through which employees can secretly observe the customers. In addition to the life that each openly sells, both also possess hidden life. We see this in Zoë by the fact that she is very pregnant, but must disguise her appearance so as not to remind customers of the possible consequences of the lecherous behavior that her club encourages. Likewise, in the film's first scenes we see that Thomas is pregnant in a different way. Here, he is smuggling exotic bird eggs into the country by strapping the eggs to his stomach in order to hide them from Canadian customs officials. This hidden life also extends to their introverted personalities. To combat their inability to communicate verbally, both try to make interpersonal connections by means of physical contact. In a sense, then, Thomas and Zoë (as the Greek origin of her name might suggest) are givers of life both openly in their businesses and privately in their interaction with others. Next, Francis and Eric are parallel characters because of their mutual obsessions with Christina. Although Christina is intended to be seen as a sex object, neither Francis nor Eric has any interest in her in this regard. Instead, she symbolizes an emotional relationship that both once had, but now have lost. When they eventually discover their real relationship, Francis and Eric find that they do not need Christina and make an emotional bond with each other, which is symbolized by a physical embrace. Lastly, Christina and Tracey can be associated because Francis considers both as symbols of his dead daughter. However, Francis' relationships with Christina and Tracey both fail because he is unable to develop bonds that go beyond their assigned roles as a stripper and babysitter. Therefore, while Zoë and Thomas can be seen as givers of life, Christina and Tracey clearly receive life by taking on the roles that Francis and Eric impose on them. There are also many reoccuring images and symbols that reinforce the emotional isolation of the characters. The use of secret surveillance by two-way mirrors serves both as an invisible yet uncrossable boundary between people who would otherwise be very close to one another and as a way for the characters to make private judgments of those who are being unwittingly observed. In fact, while Eric secretly observes and judges Francis during his nights at Exotica, Francis, because of this job as an auditor, does the same to Thomas during the day. Egoyan reminds us that this relationship can ultimately be extended to include the audience members, who also make private judgments of the film's characters (we've this before in films like Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' and Powell's 'Peeping Tom'). As we watch the film, we too are in a sense reaching out to forge an emotional connection that transcends the barrier of the medium itself. The film's overriding presence of money suggests to the characters that the only legitimate grounds for a relationship is financial, and any time an emotional connection is made the characters feel guilty if they are not paying for it. Finally, the frequent appearance of parrots and their uncharacteristic silence reflects the characters' inability to communicate and overcome the losses of their past. I've really grown to admire this film and Egoyan's work in general. In 'Exotica' he creates a work of complex symmetry and interconnecting symbols while also conveying an atmosphere of lyrical intensity.