HOLY SMOKE (director/writer: Jane Campion; screenwriter: Anna Campion; cinematographer: Dion Beebe; editor: Veronika Jenet; cast: Kate Winslet (Ruth Barron), Harvey Keitel (P.J. Waters), Paul Goddard (Tim Barron), Pam Grier (Carol), Julie Hamilton (Miriam Barron), Sophie Lee (Yvonne Barron), Tim Robertson (Gilbert Barron), Austen Tayshus (Stan), Kerry Walker (Aunt Puss), Daniel Wyllie (Robbie Barron), George Mangos (Baba,The Guru), 1999)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Holy Smoke is a beautiful film to watch -- from the feverish credit sequence -- of the film's title written in smoky letters, to Kate Winslet's psychodelic-like India sojourn, and then onto her trying experiences in the naturally scenic Australian outback. The film has perfectly framed scenes and magnificent visuals, and a divertingly amusing storyline to tune into, even if it gives into its own silly side and becomes after a fast start mostly a wonderfully entertaining film touching on many societal nerve points but going nowhere but back into its own cynical view of life, resorting to a politically safe response to all its pin pricks about mind control. Though, in all honesty, it should be commended for taking chances and telling its guru story in this refreshingly different style.
How perceptive of a film it is, is questionable, as it is provocatively stimulated by overwrought acting and filled with the Aussie taste for slapdash comedy and vulgar dialogue. There is too much of a loss of subject context to do any serious intellectual damage about any of the themes it broaches. But it does, on the serious side of its agenda, at least, raise some valid points about mind control and how men treat women. It is scripted by the Campion sisters (Jane & Anna) and directed by Jane, with a very noticeable woman's touch and a ribald sense of lustiness.
It opens with the Australian Ruth Barron (Kate Winslet) in India with her girlfriend, attending an "enlightenment rally" where a charismatic Hindu guru, Baba, is performing at. At the gathering, there is a gaudily resplendent array of yellow and pink colors to dazzle the senses, seeming more like a light show for a Jefferson Airplane concert at the Fillmore West than a religious ceremony. Ruth is moved by the experience and the guru's touch of her forehead is the ultimate one for her, and she thereby seeks to stay in India and adapt to her new spiritual consciousness: changing her name to the one given her by Baba, studying meditation, wearing a sari, and endearing herself to the customs of India while living in a commune in New Delhi. She is hoping to straighten out whatever is bothering her about her present life, though she just came to India as a tourist with no interest in its religions. But, as the new saying goes, when in India, do what the other tourists do. So before going back home from her touristy vacation, she visits the guru and really experiences something magical. I think, later on, when she is back home, she mentions that she must learn how to cry for others as being her problem, the thing that she wanted most to learn from her blissful Hindu guru.
Back home in Australia, her traveling companion girlfriend tells Ruth's parents that their girl has flipped out and has been brainwashed to join a cult. The distraught mother (Julie Hamilton) talks her husband (Tim Robertson) into paying for an expert American cult exiter, someone who will deprogram her, who comes with the reputation of almost always succeeding, the only drawback is that he charges a hefty fee for his services. But first mom has to go to New Delhi to get her daughter to come back home. She is advised by the local psychologist (Tayshus) to make up a lie, to tell her daughter that she must come home because her father is dying, and that once she is home, then the deprogramer will take over until she is conditioned to go back to being normal again (which in this case means dressing up in a cowgirl outfit and going to the local pub for Disco Night, where you can get drunk or high on drugs). But mom has trouble adjusting to India: its crowds, lack of modern toilets, and its strange culture. Her collapse comes at just the right time, as it prevents Ruth's participation in a group wedding to Baba, and gets her to reluctantly board the plane and come back home to meet again her calculating, cartoonish, bourgeois family.
When back home in the suburbs of Sydney, the sari wearing Ruth sticks out from the rest of the middle-class family like a hippie at a Republican convention. The immediate family consists of her gay brother (Goddard), her macho brother (Wyllie) with his sexually frustrated scatter-brained wife (Sophie), and her philandering father and timidly nervous mother. All of their warmth and smiles for her seem disingenuous, especially when compared to the guru's.
The deprogrammer, P.J. Waters (Keitel), arrives, dressed in all-black and sporting snazzy cowboy boots, as if he's a western gunfighter fighting the Indians-- he stands off to the side in a smug pose, as the men in the family surround the girl and corral her as if she were an animal, and force her to meet with the old and weary looking PJ, who has dyed his hair black and breathes arrogance as easily as a fish makes bubbles in the water. He also goes heavy on the mouth spray, making sure he is sweet-smelling at all times.
The two go off to the outback as P. J. puts into motion his 3-day step program, and the breakdown in the film's sensibility becomes astronomical at this point, making me wonder what the Campion sisters were thinking. The film loses its sense of credibility and becomes a battle of the sexes, with the inevitable male-female struggle taking precedence over the heavy-handed religious aspects first introduced into the story. The expert Keitel in a matter of one day loses his grip on what he has built his whole career on, as he falls in love with Kate, which seemed far-fetched and unconvincing to me. That is not to say all these hyperventilating and sexy scenes weren't watchable as mindless entertainment, as the audience gets a chance to see how really beautiful Kate's breasts are and how base Keitel could be, as he turns into a dirty old man and pursues Kate across the outback in a red dress with smears of lipstick over his face, supposedly getting his just desserts for being a male chauvenist pig. He is so dishonest, that he gets quickly sidetracked from his surefire program and means of a rich livelihood at the first sight of a woman's body and that the family is so loony that they interrupt his deprogramming, after spending a king's ransom to secure his services, before he has finished, seemed like a reach to me, as if the director forgot what her story was about and got sidetracked into doing a screwball comedy.
Admittedly, it was funny to watch Harvey start to pray to her Baba (God) for help in making this absurd love affair work, even if Baba can't help. In reality, praying does not guarantee that one's prays will be answered. So, in short, he's not for her, and no matter what he does won't work, which kills the romance part to this screwball comedy.
What does this all mean, not too much, except its fun to see Keitel get his stereotypical male psyche bruised and ham it up as Kate turns the tables on him. It was also easy on the eyes to watch the talented actress that Kate is, walk luringly in the outback night, in a sexually uninhibited way, and have Keitel eyeball her naked body as she parades in front of him and to watch as he eagerly makes love to her in the gentle way a woman wants to be made love to (or deified).
Yes. She has won. He can't deprogram her. But, Ah! those breasts of Kate are really something to behold...but it is her personality that is the star of the film. She was the only one in the film who wasn't a shallow caricature, and her performance was daring, even smashing, taking this zany script and making the most of it, getting out of it certainly more than it deserved. Which means the film actually worked in some skewed sense, as it dove into the question of mind control and the human condition and gave no answers, except the strong suggestion that having compassion for another person is what has to emerge from a person's heart before they can be expected to be free from their karma. And, in a muddled way, this film lets the audience be the observer and lets it come to its own conclusions, which is why I imagine this film will get a mixed-bag of reviews-- ranging from those who can't stand it, to those who rave about it.
There were so many wasted moments that blunted this beautifully shot film, that shot itself unecessarily in the foot, even though it did manage to escape from being a dud by its freaky humor and its nonstop assault on the senses of propriety, making this a madcap comedy instead of anything else. It also badly underutilized the talented Pam Grier, giving her such a miniscule and predictable part, that she had no chance to do her thing. But what it had going for it, is a sense of freedom, an eye for beauty, and Kate's undaunting performance, which makes it something to put in your pipe and smoke. Perhaps not getting the ultimate high, but definetly not getting down in the dumps.
And speaking about smoke, how easy it is for everything to go up in smoke, as the film's main ingredient becomes this free moving spirit that takes charge of the story as it goes off in all sorts of directions, some worth pursuing (Kate's spiritual trip) and some just thankfully vanishing as quickly as it came forth (Keitel's ego trip). If only it wasn't so ridiculous, it could have been a much more salient film, even if it were to lose a few laughs along the way.
REVIEWED ON 4/23/2000 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews