THE DRESS A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
Winner of the International Film Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, the Dutch film "The Dress" ("De Jurk") is an uneasy mix of good-humored frivolity and disturbing sexual violence. It often feels like two separate and distinct movies stitched together.
The lighter part of Alex van Warmerdam's film (the multi-talented director also produced, wrote, and stars in "The Dress") is the unique concept of having the film chronicle the title article, from its inspiration and design, to its passage from one hapless owner to the next. This construct is a clever one and van Warmerdam has a deft eye for social detail, and an even defter ear for dialogue.
The darker, unsettling aspects of the film are the incidents which befall those unlucky enough to possess the eponymous garment.
In this regard the film is only semi-successful, managing to entice the audience with a breezy, humorous tone throughout while simultaneously subjecting them to several unnerving sequences. Sequences which, for the most part, feature women at the hands of men with pathological designs on their bodies.
The dress in question is a simple summer frock sporting a bold, eye-catching pattern of gold and rust-colored leaves--actually they look like fat, tiger-striped leeches--backed by a sea of azure blue.
A sixty-one year old woman first purchases the passion-inciting apparel in a ritzy boutique, even though her husband claims it to be a young girl's dress. Within minutes of putting it on and suggesting they engage in some wild sex, their luck begins to change.
No question about it this dress is bad ju-ju!
Next, a man with a ZZ Top beard gives the dress to his cleaning woman, Johanna (the barely-dressed Ariane Schluter) after it drops out of the sky, tugged from a clothesline by a gust of wind. His futile attempts to locate its original owner best exemplify van Warmerdam's wicked sense of humor. Johanna hopes to use the dress to seduce her painter boyfriend, but he seems more interested in paint. Unfortunately, the dress does catch the eye of the ticket collector (played by the producer/director/writer) on Johanna's train home, who follows her back to her place, slipping into bed with her while she sleeps.
This scene might be played for laughs--van Warmerdam certainly has a gift for the absurd--but it's pretty creepy to think of someone introducing themselves and claiming to love you, as van Warmerdam's character does to Johanna, in such a private and vulnerable setting.
That sequence, however, is not nearly as freakily disturbing as a scene early in the film in which a motorcycle courier delivers a ream of fabric to the dress designer and witnesses a half-naked woman running around outside, crying hysterically because she doesn't want to engage in kinky sex with the designer and his "friend" Tony.
"Wear and beware" warns the movie's tag line. Watch and beware as well; "The Dress" is a funny, skillfully-made film that is often times jarring.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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