EXOTICA
A film review by Claudia Iturriaga
and Alex Lopez-Ortiz
Copyright 1995 Claudia Iturriaga, Alex Lopez-Ortiz
NOTICE: This is a review and analysis of EXOTICA. The first part of this piece is the review, the second part contains some analysis of the movie which might be construed as spoilers. If you have not seen the movie and after reading the first part you intend to do so, then save the second part for the discussion afterwards.
Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Elias Kosteas, Don McKellar, Arsinee Khanijian, Sarah Polley Director: Atom Egoyan Screenplay: Atom Egoyan
EXOTICA is a film that grows on retrospection.
EXOTICA keeps the viewer guessing about the relationship between the various characters in the film. All of the people know each other, but apart from that, there seems to be no other reason why to select such set and follow them in this fictional account.
The director hints for possible solutions, using a multi-line plot, so popular with critics in MYSTERY TRAIN, and used to good advantage by Quentin Tarantino in PULP FICTION. EXOTICA reaches a whole new dimension using this technique. At the end it is surprising to see how well the pieces of the puzzle fit together, in spite their apparent unconnectedness and even misleading features.
The out-of-chronological-order technique has become ever so popular, perhaps even de rigueur, for biographical films. Similarly, we can now expect to see more movies in the future which will use, to varying extent, converging multiplots.
On a first glance, once the multi-plot puzzle in EXOTICA is solved, there seems to be little left to look at. But perceptive minds which take the time to dig further will be rewarded with interesting views on life or rather, commentaries on views OF life.
EXOTICA is very much worth seeing. It opened to critic's praise worldwide (I first saw it in Mexico City, last December). In Canada, it broke records for a movie of its kind, which prompted the American distributor to go for a wide release. Apart from a strong plot, acting is very convincing, and the soundtrack seems as if made for the movie.
The spoon-fed-entertainment crowd may not appreciate this movie, and thus it might last little on screen. But if you want to try a movie a cut above the crowd, with an originality that is ever so rare, by all means see EXOTICA.
ANALYSIS (**Spoilers** ahead)
What is behind the complex plot in EXOTICA?
First, a common theme of the quest for gratification by monetary means. The lone tax-auditor, the repressed homosexual pet shop owner, the pregnant woman which runs the nightclub, the rich man which has the club remodeled, the audience at the movie theatre, all use personal wealth to buy palliative relief for the penuries of the soul.... Then we have the quest for gratification through visual means by most of the same people, including those who sit watching EXOTICA....
In that regard EXOTICA stands for onlookers at a nightclub, for the rich man looking through silver mirrors, and poor-rich people looking at other's people lives through a silver screen. EXOTICA also stands for unwanted society attention into the lives of other people, such as the tax auditor and the pet shop owner.
EXOTICA is the customer agent looking at the pet shop owner, which in turn is looking at the core of the problems between the strip dancer and the tax auditor through the detached eye of a gay person (no attraction to the strip dancer), and only interested on avoiding jail (no personal relationship with the tax auditor).
In EXOTICA everybody is watching, and what is worse, everybody knows.
Second, EXOTICA is about isolated people holding back their feelings; about people which by voluntary or involuntary means transfer their view of reality to other characters. The strip dancer becomes the proverbial daughter, the DJ becomes the proverbial killer by means of breaking the relationship between the father and the proverbial daughter. The niece becomes the baby sitter, the baby sitter becomes the dancer, and the dancer becomes the proverbial daughter. The pet shop owner becomes the proverbial DJ, by finding the proverbial daughter.
A chain made of real and imagined links coming around full circle, just as everything comes around to a fitting whole at the end of the movie.
Remarkable.
Rating **** (out of five)
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