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Screen Scene

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Parent Issue
Month
June
Year
1996
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Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
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Agenda Publications
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SCREEN SCENE

by John Carlos Cantu

EXOTICA

[1994. Directed by Atom Egoyan. Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Mia Kirshner. Miramax Films/Miramax Home Video. 104 mins.]

   The subterranean emotional shoals Atom Egoyan traverses in Exotica are played along a finely etched psychological fault line. Rather than merely grapple with the trite truism that we're all games-players in our most intimate encounters. For Egoyan explores the similar notion that we're all game-playing in our social postures. For Egoyan, like another master film psychologist, Ingmar Bergman, believes all our social postures are ultimately intímate encounters.

   The difference between the two psychological stances may seem less than subtle in the offing. But then again, how does one tell the difference? Egoyan's point seems to be that one can't always tell the difference. And rt's in this conditional uncertainty that the hurt lies.

   The various personas in the film are often on the verge of collapse. Their tensions are as intricately bound together as the minor chords of a self-defensive plea sounding its affected lament It's these subtle quirks that make Exotica a painfully fruitful study of the most delicate kind.

   The film ranks comparably with Bergman's The Silence as an example of how love's intensity can take the energy out of living even as the necessity of caring for others inexorably continues. Francis (Bruce Greenwood), an auditor by day, visits an exotic dancer, Christina (Mia Kirshner), in the club Exotica where she ritualistically disrobes her schoolgirl garb for him in a private ceremony.

   Eric (Elias Koteas), a disc jockey at the nightclub, fumes nightly jealously observing this charade and he conspires to rid the club of Francis' presence. His pregnant girlfriend, and Madame of the club, Zoe (Arsinée Khanjian), has meanwhile formed a relationship with Christina and she must decide whom she will ultimately side with: Her lover or the father of her child.

   Elsewhere, Thomas (Don McKellar), the owner of a local pet shop, is being audited by Francis as part of an investigation into somer are bird eggs he's been smuggling into the country. After Francis is thrown out of the club for violating its policy , he and Thomas agree to swap favors so that he can get back into the Exótica. In return, Thomas' business will not be investigated.

So much for Act One.

   This unrelenting complexity vies for the viewer's attention and intellect. Granted it's a bit of work, but then Exotica isn't meant to be a middling fare. For just to stress the point, Egoyan's screenplay dictates that ultimately none of these plot lines is what the film is about.

   The moral trials of Francis, Thomas, Mia, and Eric are merely a handful of beads in a mosaic that engulfs all in a crest of chance occurrence. Their intricately wrought fates are equally melded together by the brightest light of the night club and the lightest daub of psychic torture.

   Each convoluted relationship constantly lashes at the other. Yet with a miniaturists' unhurried sense of precision, Egoyan examines each of his characters with an understated clarity that supports his examination. He slowly reveals layer upon layer of interpersonal flotsam and jetsam in these lives until the film begins to resemble the first deck of a slowly sinking night-life heartbreak hotel.

   The psychological fissures hidden slightly beneath the personalities of Exotica's Francis, Thomas, Mia, and Eric have the depth of any of the screen's prior great cinematic psychologists. Like the before-mentioned Bergman, Egoyan's patience in allowing his screenplay to develop allows the work to develop in a unhurried fashion. In doing so, his carefully measured emotional exploration in Exotica eventually reaches its unerring accurate and deadly fault. 

RATING KEY

Acting

Cinematography

Direction

Editing

Narrative

Sound

Special Effects

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