SKELETON WOMAN A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
Writer/director Vivi Letsou's film, SKELETON WOMAN, is like a video that you might find in the adult section of a New Age bookstore. It tells an unusual story of a mythic "Wild Woman" who comes from the sea and whose spirit protects the nearby city. Sometimes a bird or a fish, the being, this time, takes the form of a woman, Olya (Daphne Rubin-Vega, WILD THINGS), who comes to earth to help three emotionally-lost human beings.
Anna (Serena Scott Thomas, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH) meets and bonds with Olya in their breast cancer support group. Anna, who was once a painter, hasn't been happy since her husband, Victor (Anthony John Denison), talked her into giving it up. He bought her an ad agency with some of the money that he made off of his lucrative real estate ventures. Victor hasn't been happy either since his failing vision forced him to end his career as a pilot. Although Victor and Anna live in a mansion to die for, neither one seems the least bit happy.
Olya's lesbian lover, Trisha (Ria Pavia), is having trouble writing her big novel. Olya isn't all that happy herself, since she works as an exotic dancer at a "glorified psychedelic sex circus," while wanting to become a more serious performer. The bizarre nightclub called the Euphoria Club includes erotic acts, snakes that slink over the dancer's bodies and the guests' martinis, and spiral neon lights on the tables. The dancers' revealing costumes look like they were designed by Romanian folk dancers. The whole place is so surreal that you wonder what the point of it all is.
An eclectic movie, its scenes range from arguments about rising home prices in Marin County to a dance number roughly akin to two female mud wrestlers without the mud. The movie likes to cut to images of crashing waves or of Olya, shown in silhouette, walking on the shore. Frequently it stops to tell us tales like the one about the "skeleton woman" whose bones have been cast into the sea. The sound of the sea is her mournful cry.
The film plays like an abstract poem that has been translated into prose. The story drifts back and forth like the ocean waves.
Although it's handsomely shot and well acted, the film is only for those who can buy into its fairly tale. To me it smacked too much of New Age psychobabble, and I was never drawn into the story. The excessively cute FLASHDANCE MEETS NEW AGE SHOWGIRLS exotic dance numbers were enough to kill it for me.
SKELETON WOMAN runs 1:20. It is not rated but would be an R for nudity and sexual situations. It would be acceptable for high school seniors and older.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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