Graphic violence and sex on camera can be cheap ways of grabbing attention. Paris/Sexy contains both, but it was other components and the overall impact that made a lasting impression that Paris/Sexy was one of the very best shorts I saw in this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The film opens with strong visual contrasts. A young woman chops wood outside her house in the countryside, far from other habitations. She's still dressed in a nightie. Probably she has this household chore before getting dressed for work. But the incongruity is slightly surreal. A fragile image of beauty highlighting hard conditions. It's underlined by the briefly lingering shot of a rough, unshaven man who might be her father. The camera loiters on his stubble. We are pulled to the more aesthetically pleasing and strangely normal image of the daughter.
Another sudden shift – but still creating narrative rather than artificially disrupting it – we see woodchop girl at a bedside in the village, helping an elderly person take their medicine. A second, contrasting female figure enters, leather jacket and lipstick. She suggests an unstated different perspective, still to be explored. Meanwhile woodchop girl lipsticks the elderly lady, a token of personal caring and empathy. We will learn that leather girl is a French model and her name is Francoise. Woodchop girl (who's called Greer) helps her find a hotel. Next morning, woodchop leather girl go to the pub with a male (played by Martin Compston) that has shared the hotel with leather girl (his sister?) last night. Where afterwards? Woodchop is uncomfortably embarrassed at the thought of visitors seeing her truly grotty house. Torn mattresses. Peeling walls. It's a hovel. The youngsters' clean wholesomeness, even with their differences, seems out of place. But it is what you might have to accept in the countryside. It is just, as Francoise says, 'really weird.' For all the lipstick, Francoise is not a pretentious person. Neither is Greer a bumpkin. There is a virginal purity they share, literal or metaphoric. They pass through the unclean world without being tainted. A spirit of wild horses. Where are locked doors in such a world? Like uncaged birds, they would sidestep the hidden whispers.
Paris/Sexy delivers an uncluttered poetry of extremes with natural economy of dialogue and littered with visual kick-self clues that make us gasp at the powerful dénouement. A feature film offers many different challenges. Accomplishing it with the skill and impact displayed in this short would be a treat.
The film opens with strong visual contrasts. A young woman chops wood outside her house in the countryside, far from other habitations. She's still dressed in a nightie. Probably she has this household chore before getting dressed for work. But the incongruity is slightly surreal. A fragile image of beauty highlighting hard conditions. It's underlined by the briefly lingering shot of a rough, unshaven man who might be her father. The camera loiters on his stubble. We are pulled to the more aesthetically pleasing and strangely normal image of the daughter.
Another sudden shift – but still creating narrative rather than artificially disrupting it – we see woodchop girl at a bedside in the village, helping an elderly person take their medicine. A second, contrasting female figure enters, leather jacket and lipstick. She suggests an unstated different perspective, still to be explored. Meanwhile woodchop girl lipsticks the elderly lady, a token of personal caring and empathy. We will learn that leather girl is a French model and her name is Francoise. Woodchop girl (who's called Greer) helps her find a hotel. Next morning, woodchop leather girl go to the pub with a male (played by Martin Compston) that has shared the hotel with leather girl (his sister?) last night. Where afterwards? Woodchop is uncomfortably embarrassed at the thought of visitors seeing her truly grotty house. Torn mattresses. Peeling walls. It's a hovel. The youngsters' clean wholesomeness, even with their differences, seems out of place. But it is what you might have to accept in the countryside. It is just, as Francoise says, 'really weird.' For all the lipstick, Francoise is not a pretentious person. Neither is Greer a bumpkin. There is a virginal purity they share, literal or metaphoric. They pass through the unclean world without being tainted. A spirit of wild horses. Where are locked doors in such a world? Like uncaged birds, they would sidestep the hidden whispers.
Paris/Sexy delivers an uncluttered poetry of extremes with natural economy of dialogue and littered with visual kick-self clues that make us gasp at the powerful dénouement. A feature film offers many different challenges. Accomplishing it with the skill and impact displayed in this short would be a treat.
