'The Book of Revelation' is an adaptation of Rupert Thomson's 1997 novel about a male dancer who experiences sexual abuse at the hands of three women. The film is directed by Ana Kokkinos, who returns to a key motif of her earlier 'Head On': the wounded male body in a society where men are meant to be un-breakable.
Tom Long plays Daniel, the male dancer who experiences the aforementioned attack at the hands of women. The women (all concealed by hoods and masks) hold him prisoner in a rundown building where they subject him to various forms of sexual degradation.
After being released by the unseen rapists, Daniel can't admit to what's happened. After all, who'd believe him? A man being abducted and forced to satisfy the sexual demands of three women? So he leaves his girlfriend, quits his dancing career ... and goes in search of the mysterious attackers. Why? To seek revenge? For more torture?
The film alternates between excerpts of Daniel trying (or not trying) to come to grips with his experience and flashbacks to the said attacks. This creates a dense, nightmarish atmosphere that still unsettles me almost an hour after this film finished. Also, some haunting use is made of various Melbourne locations (though as a Melbournite, I couldn't help but want to cry out at certain points: "That's the cafe at Melbourne Uni! Why's he walking down that fateful lane when there are so many milk bars on Flinders Street?")
The abuse itself is rendered ambiguous. Are they 'real' acts of sexual degradation? Or fantasies of domination and submission? Psychoanalytic film theorists will have a field day with the references to infancy, the womb, the maternal, castration ... Nevertheless, I had to wonder: How would the audience respond if the women weren't wearing such highly stylised garb (and shot in equally stylised surrounds, at one point in slow-mo?) The attack scenes do accurately suggest Daniel's loss of male power and privilege, but (thanks to the manner in which they have been filmed) wouldn't look out of place in your average male-oriented porno. Nothing innovative or politically subversive there, or in the objectification of women that (we are led to believe) is one of Daniel's responses to his degradation.
And there's the acting. Greta Scaachi and Deborah Mailman are excellent as women trying to understand Daniel's silent pain, but Tom Long doesn't hit the right note. He seems just too removed from the world around him, even before the attacks. One may argue in his defence that he is trying to represent one model of masculinity - strong and sturdy, tough and unfeeling. Perhaps so. But it's also difficult to empathise with his character, or feel any emotional connection for him whatsoever.
But I'm rushing ahead of myself here ... Perhaps (not unlike Daniel) there are many questions and anxieties about 'The Book of Revelation' that I have yet to articulate or come to grips with. The film may not be a completely honest (or subversive) study of sexual violence or gender roles. But it does raise some interesting - and often quite disturbing - questions about these issues. And for that alone, Ana Kokkinos should be commended.
Tom Long plays Daniel, the male dancer who experiences the aforementioned attack at the hands of women. The women (all concealed by hoods and masks) hold him prisoner in a rundown building where they subject him to various forms of sexual degradation.
After being released by the unseen rapists, Daniel can't admit to what's happened. After all, who'd believe him? A man being abducted and forced to satisfy the sexual demands of three women? So he leaves his girlfriend, quits his dancing career ... and goes in search of the mysterious attackers. Why? To seek revenge? For more torture?
The film alternates between excerpts of Daniel trying (or not trying) to come to grips with his experience and flashbacks to the said attacks. This creates a dense, nightmarish atmosphere that still unsettles me almost an hour after this film finished. Also, some haunting use is made of various Melbourne locations (though as a Melbournite, I couldn't help but want to cry out at certain points: "That's the cafe at Melbourne Uni! Why's he walking down that fateful lane when there are so many milk bars on Flinders Street?")
The abuse itself is rendered ambiguous. Are they 'real' acts of sexual degradation? Or fantasies of domination and submission? Psychoanalytic film theorists will have a field day with the references to infancy, the womb, the maternal, castration ... Nevertheless, I had to wonder: How would the audience respond if the women weren't wearing such highly stylised garb (and shot in equally stylised surrounds, at one point in slow-mo?) The attack scenes do accurately suggest Daniel's loss of male power and privilege, but (thanks to the manner in which they have been filmed) wouldn't look out of place in your average male-oriented porno. Nothing innovative or politically subversive there, or in the objectification of women that (we are led to believe) is one of Daniel's responses to his degradation.
And there's the acting. Greta Scaachi and Deborah Mailman are excellent as women trying to understand Daniel's silent pain, but Tom Long doesn't hit the right note. He seems just too removed from the world around him, even before the attacks. One may argue in his defence that he is trying to represent one model of masculinity - strong and sturdy, tough and unfeeling. Perhaps so. But it's also difficult to empathise with his character, or feel any emotional connection for him whatsoever.
But I'm rushing ahead of myself here ... Perhaps (not unlike Daniel) there are many questions and anxieties about 'The Book of Revelation' that I have yet to articulate or come to grips with. The film may not be a completely honest (or subversive) study of sexual violence or gender roles. But it does raise some interesting - and often quite disturbing - questions about these issues. And for that alone, Ana Kokkinos should be commended.
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