LADIES ON THE ROCKS (director: Christian Braad Thomsen; cast: Anne Marie Helger (Laura), Helle Ryslinge (Micha), Flemming Quist Møller (Leonard), Hans Henrik Clemensen (Hans-Henrik), 1983-Denmark)
The two girls, probably in their mid-twenties, Micha (Ryslinge) and Laura (Helger), have a variety revue act, which they named "Ladies Trip", where they do comic skits with strong sexual innuendoes and some song numbers in various nightclubs, bars, and meeting halls across Denmark.
Micha is single and disillusioned with her wry circumstances, feeling that life has dealt her some bad cards to play with, as her life is a game of losing hands. She is looking for something more romantic in her life and can't find it in the men she goes out with. Leonard (Møller) is her rock and roll musician boyfriend who likes her because she is a good bang but finds he has nothing else in common with her, treating her with disrespect and coldness, overtly showing her that he doesn't give one rap about her, and making no bones about it. She feels like an addict who is addicted sexually to this guy that she knows is no good for her and can't do anything to get him out of her system, while hating herself for being as weak-minded about it as she is. Laura, on the other hand, is in an upper-class marriage, living a very comfortable existence with her stable business executive husband and two sweet daughters. Her husband treats her act as a hobby, and seems to offer her all the creature comforts of what an ideal nuclear family should have. Appearance-wise, she seems to have it all in her favor.
We soon see Micha and Laura preparing to go on a long tour with their act, with Micha almost out-of-her head with rage that Leonard stood her up for another girl, swearing she never wants to see him again, while Laura breathes a sigh of relief that she has escaped for a bit from the stuffy existence she has, though she is none too happy about Micha being on such a downer to start their tour, telling her to put that bad stuff out of her mind, that this is our trip.
This is fundamentally a feminist oriented road movie without the politics of the movement playing a part in the story, as the film is steeped in personal irony over abandonment of loved ones and fantasies that can't become real, without any particular message to deliver, except that these two have their hands full coping with their life, as it seems, it is only by their humor and forceful spirit that they can manage to survive.
On their first stop, they give a bawdy performance in the library and are then asked to stay after and answer questions from the audience. Since they consider themselves artists, they feel their act speaks for itself and are particularly upset at being blind sided by one hostile viewer of their show, an overweight lady who feels that they made fun of how obese women look in their act and she felt they did a disservice to women who have that problem, as she upsets them as she rails at them before walking out.
The remainder of the film takes place on the road, emphasizing how the girls relate to each other: from their girl talk and gossipy chatter and need to let off steam from all the anger that builds up in them, to their ever-demanding personal lives, as Micha is still hard-pressed to find a true romantic relationship and Laura is confused about who she is.
Micha angrily questions the bourgeois patrons who invite them for an after-the-show snack, how they can justify making most of the money off their work and look down upon them with a snobbish attitude, while they just scrape by on a minimal amount of money even though they do all the hard work. Laura has retreated to the basement with their patron's elderly father who has a tremendous passion for trains and runs his model trains to imitate the Danish train system, even to the point of its lateness of schedule. Since the family treats him as someone not to be taken seriously, yet it is quite evident, that he, alone, has a real love for something that the bourgeois in his family just don't have.
We see how tough the road is for the girls, as they make toast on their hotel's radiator, and how they bring a piss pail along with them because some of the places they play at don't have bathrooms, and we see how uncomfortable they feel, always on the move and always cast as outsiders who feel alienated from the locals.
What comes across very lucidly, is how others look upon them so much reflects the attitudes they come away with, as their comic act begins to get more bitter and more sexually revealing, as their lives begin spinning out of control, though their act is working and they are playing to mostly sold-out houses.
When Hans-Henrik (Clemensen), the very middle-class husband of Laura catches one of their out-of -town shows and takes Laura out to eat in a fancy restaurant she is most uncomfortable in, their relationship is at last shown to be the sham it is, as he questions the explicit sexual kinkiness of her act and the lowbrow humor it arouses, ashamed if any one in his office would see a wife of his in such a third-rate show.
On the road, the filmmaker brings out the opinions the various sort of people the girls meet have of performers and, especially, female ones out on their own. A chocolate salesman tells them every one is an actor trying to sell their product, but the important thing is, if you try hard enough people will forgive you for what you are lacking or might not even notice it. That his gimmick is to get the children to eat the chocolate first, then the parents are delighted that the kids like the chocolate, so his sale becomes an easy one. He fails miserbly when he tries to seduce Micha, which should tell you what the filmmaker thinks of his approach to life. A bartender tells them the last time he was at a show was 20 years ago, and he walked out at intermission. The girls innocently tell him that they don't have intermissions during their shows.
It is hard to say for sure what the film is crying out to say from all the self-discoveries that keep happening to the girls, as their act grows despite- and- because of their personal failures, and as Laura gets divorced and the kids become showbiz kids travelling with the act, and Micha is stuck with the problem she always has, she can't find Mr. Right.
It seems as if the women are disgruntled that men have let them down, and that their life has turned into a series of one-night stands. Though, what stands out, is the marvelously genuine performances of the heroines of the story and how appealing they were in such a troublesome way, that there public appearance might seem calm and collected, but behind the scenes they are being gnawed at by all the chaos in their life.
This thought provoking film, touched many different themes with equal breath and veracity, but this also highlighted its most glaring weakness, that it couldn't focus in on any one theme completely, as it mostly questioned middle-class values and the need for a person to find a way to express themselves enthusiastically, pointing out that maybe, that is all one can hope for, yet leaving so many other things unanswered that it brought up, that you could write your own movie from all that was left unsaid that remains speculative about the girls and their situation.
Ultimately, the road itself must be considered the goal of the trip, and this engaging film allows you to feel the pains of the girls who are still searching for their own identities; but strangely enough, even as the film ends with the weary girls wondering what's next, as they finish their act and are sitting where the audience sat moments before, you get the feeling that things will somehow or other work out for them, that these are some pretty toughened and likable characters, and they have left a good impression with the audience, which is why their act had so many sell-outs and why they should be pleasing to the audience that sees them on film, except this audience has to look at the girl's a bit deeper knowing all the disappointments and discomforts they have gone through, and I don't know if there is a mass audience out there willing to see things that are harder to look at, without feeling remiss about what they are seeing.
REVIEWED ON 5/5/99 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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