KISSED
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
If your lover comes to you smelling of formaldehyde and with blood under her fingernails, be suspicious. The Canadian film KISSED by first-time director Lynne Stopkewich tackles one of the few subjects I have never seen considered before in the movies: necrophilia.
Before you either stop reading my review or start flaming me for liking this film, let me assure you that you have to see the movie to fully understand it. It handles its subject matter with delicacy. Although it is frequently shocking, it is never exploitive. On the other hand, if you were to see this film without knowing what it is about, there is a good chance you might walk out or be sickened by some of the scenes. This is a movie that pulls no punches. If it were a Hollywood film, the studio would have demanded a major rewrite after the first test screening. (Or they might have tried to shelve it as Ted Turner did last year with David Cronenberg's CRASH.)
When I saw KISSED at an advanced screening, the audience was fully engaged and many were enraged by the story. Albeit only for the adventuresome filmgoer, this is a movie designed to make you think. The intelligent script by Angus Fraser and director Lynne Stopkewich is based on Barbara Gowdy's short story, "We So Seldom Look on Love." In the press kit the director says she found the story in a book of erotica by women authors.
In a film that appears on the surface to be unique, there are numerous parallels to other pictures. First, the show is about obsession as is FATAL ATTRACTION. Second, the film's early scenes show two young teenager girls dancing in their underwear around a dead bird much like the opening scene of the nude, "pagan" dance in THE CRUCIBLE. Finally, the film is actually the HAROLD AND MAUDE for the 90s -- compulsively preoccupied with death.
"I've always been fascinated by death," explains the protagonist, Sandra Larson. "The feel of it, the smell of it, the quietness of it." (Natasha Morley briefly plays the young teenage Sandra, and Molly Parker is the college age Sandra.) Sandra's young friend Carol abandons their spiritualistic dances around the dead animals when Sandra starts rubbing a dead chipmunk on her body until the blood begins to ooze out all over her.
Soon we cut to the grownup Sandra who figures the way to be close to death is to obtain a position in a funeral parlor. Mr. Wallis (Jay Brazeau), the funeral director, in her job interview asks her simply, "What do you know about funerals?" Not much it turns out, but she is an eager pupil. She has an insatiable desire to learn everything about preparations for burial -- especially embalming. He gives her the job and a single piece of advice, "Don't wear black -- it's too depressing."
Sandra approaches her work with a loving, sincere manner. Except for, and this is a very big except, the fact that she has sex with the corpses, she is the model of the type of employee that you would want to work in a funeral home.
In a science lesson unlike any I've ever seen before, we learn the details of embalming. I'll not repeat them lest you get ill. This scene, and not the sex, is the most difficult one to watch. The gross parts happen just off screen, but they tell you precisely what they are doing to the body.
Molly Parker gives us a Sandra who is gentle and kind. Sandra does a religious dance around the bodies before having sex with them. All of this is so beautifully done that you have to keep reminding yourself that this is a very disturbed young woman, and the guy she is violating is, afterall, dead. Sandra believes that his spirit lives on and that she is giving him pleasure as well.
Parker's performance was haunting but a bit aloof. If she could have revealed more about her motivation it would have helped enormously. The best we have is some of the dialog. "Crossing over was glorious," she tells us after her first love tryst with a corpse. "It's like looking into the sun without going blind," she describes her necrophilia later in the film. "I'm consumed."
Into Sandra's life comes a live male who makes a friendly pass at her. When Matt (Peter Outerbridge) comes on to her in a coffee shop, she is frightened by it. The immediate reaction after they become lovers is to wonder where the film is headed. As I've told my readers before, I rarely try to guess the ending of the film, but in this one I was intrigued by the possibilities. Among my numerous alternative endings, one of them did come to pass, but I was just as surprised that some of the others did not.
"You didn't faint," says the funeral director after Sandra's embalming lesson. "That's always a good sign." Well, if you don't faint, you may like this most bizarre of films. Then again, maybe not. "I never met anyone like you before," says Matt to Sandra. "You're totally different. You're compelling." So is the picture.
KISSED runs just 1:20, but seems longer due to the subject matter's intensity. The film is not yet rated, but is certainly a candidate for an NC-17 rating for its sex, full frontal nudity, and, most of all, taboo theme. This is not a film for teenagers. I give it thumbs up as did my wife. Would I recommend it? Well, if you can read this review and still be interested, you'd probably like the film. I give it ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: March 16, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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