Wild Side can be interpreted in different ways, so I guess it qualifies as artistic. To wit: the meaning is not obvious, like so many Hollywood movies that pretend they're artistic.
Surprising then that in in the 'extras' interview, director Sabastien Lifshitz cites a Hollywood director (David Lynch) as a comparison to his work; he also mentions being offended by the 'sameness' of French cinema (almost identical objections that many of us have about Hollywood crap). This is interesting considering the film he made. Outside of a few indie houses in the U.S., I can't imagine Wild Side ever, EVER seeing the light of day in Hollywood.
Lifshitz also mentions being impressed by the series 'Six Feet Under,' perhaps without realizing that it would be difficult to find a more atypical Hollywood 'dramedy' -- so atypical that only HBO would pick it up. Perspective is everything I guess. It's always greener and all that stuff.
Wild Side is a disturbing film, but, given the nature of the material, I assume it was meant to be. It's about as explicitly sexual as you can get without actually seeing anal penetration or fellatio, although there's plenty of visual suggestion to make us believe both of each.
Stephanie Michelini (as Stephanie, the real-life pre-op transsexual) has apparently never acted before. She is stone-faced throughout the film, although she emerges as a sympathetic figure in scenes with her mother and boyfriends (Yasmine Belmadi and Edouard Nikitine). But facially that sympathy does not come through on the screen. She displays emotion only at the end at the film. Perhaps that's the way we're supposed to accept her.
The three main characters in the film are broken, dispirited, marginalized people, and Lifshitz shows their world very well indeed.
I have quarrels with this film that are perhaps minor, depending on your point of view. Lifshitz shows us -- not once, but at least twice -- the blatant hypocrisy of heterosexuals who are both 'pleasured' and repulsed by homosexual acts. Why did Lifshitz add the second scene -- a brutal dehumanization of gay men and transsexuals by a straight man who pays for the privilege of seeing it? I found this quizzical. We know such hypocrisy exists everywhere, but the one scene, where a sated married man, now angry at himself, turns his back on Djamel (Belmadi) and tells him he doesn't want to 'make a habit' of having homosexual sex. That was an effective, powerful and subtle scene that fully engaged the viewer in heterosexual hypocrisy. So why add yet another that was the opposite of effective, powerful and subtle? It leaves me wondering if the director didn't have an personal axe in the fire, to mix a metaphor.
At the end, we see the three huddled in solidarity on a moving train. It's a brilliant and moving scene -- in the hostile world they face they have each other. But Lifshitz won't let it go. In the last seconds of the film, he has to show us sunlight pouring on the trio through the window of the train. The symbolism is not only hokey, it's too obvious by half. It's the kind of thing you see, well, in a Hollywood film.
The photography in this film is splendid.
Surprising then that in in the 'extras' interview, director Sabastien Lifshitz cites a Hollywood director (David Lynch) as a comparison to his work; he also mentions being offended by the 'sameness' of French cinema (almost identical objections that many of us have about Hollywood crap). This is interesting considering the film he made. Outside of a few indie houses in the U.S., I can't imagine Wild Side ever, EVER seeing the light of day in Hollywood.
Lifshitz also mentions being impressed by the series 'Six Feet Under,' perhaps without realizing that it would be difficult to find a more atypical Hollywood 'dramedy' -- so atypical that only HBO would pick it up. Perspective is everything I guess. It's always greener and all that stuff.
Wild Side is a disturbing film, but, given the nature of the material, I assume it was meant to be. It's about as explicitly sexual as you can get without actually seeing anal penetration or fellatio, although there's plenty of visual suggestion to make us believe both of each.
Stephanie Michelini (as Stephanie, the real-life pre-op transsexual) has apparently never acted before. She is stone-faced throughout the film, although she emerges as a sympathetic figure in scenes with her mother and boyfriends (Yasmine Belmadi and Edouard Nikitine). But facially that sympathy does not come through on the screen. She displays emotion only at the end at the film. Perhaps that's the way we're supposed to accept her.
The three main characters in the film are broken, dispirited, marginalized people, and Lifshitz shows their world very well indeed.
I have quarrels with this film that are perhaps minor, depending on your point of view. Lifshitz shows us -- not once, but at least twice -- the blatant hypocrisy of heterosexuals who are both 'pleasured' and repulsed by homosexual acts. Why did Lifshitz add the second scene -- a brutal dehumanization of gay men and transsexuals by a straight man who pays for the privilege of seeing it? I found this quizzical. We know such hypocrisy exists everywhere, but the one scene, where a sated married man, now angry at himself, turns his back on Djamel (Belmadi) and tells him he doesn't want to 'make a habit' of having homosexual sex. That was an effective, powerful and subtle scene that fully engaged the viewer in heterosexual hypocrisy. So why add yet another that was the opposite of effective, powerful and subtle? It leaves me wondering if the director didn't have an personal axe in the fire, to mix a metaphor.
At the end, we see the three huddled in solidarity on a moving train. It's a brilliant and moving scene -- in the hostile world they face they have each other. But Lifshitz won't let it go. In the last seconds of the film, he has to show us sunlight pouring on the trio through the window of the train. The symbolism is not only hokey, it's too obvious by half. It's the kind of thing you see, well, in a Hollywood film.
The photography in this film is splendid.