Super 8½ (La Bruce, 1994): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.05pm
This is part of the Trash season at BFI Southbank and also screens on April 18th. You can find all the details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Despite its self-deprecating camp and convoluted plot, there is an
appealing honesty to Bruce LaBruce’s Super 8 1/2. The director plays
Bruce, an over-the-hill porn star trying to restart his flagging career,
in part by acting in a documentary about him by an up-and-coming
lesbian filmmaker. We see footage from his porno loops and scenes from
the film in progress and hear comments on Bruce’s own “unfinished” epic,
“Super 8 1/2.” The title’s two obvious references are to Fellini’s
famous film about his problems making a film and to the low-budget
medium of Super-8. But a third meaning is supplied by a woman who
suggests that it’s Bruce’s own overoptimistic view of his own endowment.
In the explicit sex scenes, LaBruce moves beyond narcissism to its
opposite. As one “critic” suggests in a pretentious voice-over analysis
of one of the porn films, Bruce’s performances acknowledge the camera,
and his self-consciousness suggests a kind of emptiness that works
against any sex appeal he might have. The way the film constantly turns
back on itself, with its films-within-films and comments on them, leaves
the viewer without any firm ground, suggesting the void behind
self-absorption. Bruce’s agonized cries, heard after the final credits,
perhaps acknowledge the terror of that void.
Fred Camper
Here (and above) is the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment