VELVET GOLDMINE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
Writer and director Todd Haynes's VELVET GOLDMINE is a pseudo- documentary about Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a fictional rock superstar. Full of marvelously creative and colorful images and energetic music, the movie represents the extended rock video approach to filmmaking. The images are casually and confusingly assembled into a musical montage a la MTV.
Attempting to craft a fresh approach, the movie starts surrealistically with aliens in a flying saucer dropping an orphan on the world's doorstep. That orphan will become Oscar Wilde, and the story implies a link between him and Brian Slade a hundred years later. After this fairy tale is sprinkled on, the story quickly shakes off the pixie dust and moves back into a more traditional storyline.
Brian Slade, in an apparent publicity stunt in 1974 while at the height of his popularity, fakes an assassination attempt on his life. This causes his career to rapidly evaporate as his fans abandon him.
The movie is set 10 years later as a British journalist at an American newspaper is asked to look into the incident. The movie then skips back in time again to examine Brian's life.
Brian is an androgynous, British singer, whose wife Mandy (Toni Collette) talks about their marriage. Brian casually flaunts his bisexuality at one of his press conferences, claiming that "everybody know that most people are bisexual." The movie makes much of his bisexuality, with orgies of groupies being common.
One day, Brian meets his idol, American rocker Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), and Brian is smitten. A complete opposite, Curt exudes raw masculinity and likes nothing better than taking off his clothes on stage to shock his fans. Curt wears tight-fitting jeans without a shirt, whereas the effeminate Brian favors long, flowing gowns and bright, psychedelic colors. They both share a bisexual and promiscuous lifestyle.
The movie, which periodically takes off in search of meaning, explains that Curt had lived through a cruel childhood. As a youngster, he was given electroshock therapy when he was caught "servicing" his brother.
The film periodically develops pretentious streaks as it attempts to find meaning in its subjects. "It doesn't matter what a man does with his life," Brian's second promoter tells his first. "What matters is the legend that grows up around him." The implication is that morals are unimportant if his star can develop sufficient fame. Certainly, by that measure Brian is a huge success in life.
The energetic film is full of good music, even Mahler's 6th makes several appearances, but comes to a grinding halt in the last half hour as it decides to get serious.
Only as a colorful rock video does the film succeed. The dialog and the storyline are merely distractions. Even with its limitations as a motion picture, at least VELVET GOLDMINE is exceedingly picturesque.
VELVET GOLDMINE runs 2:00. It is rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, profanity and drug usage and would be unacceptable for most teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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