FILTH AND WISDOM
Directed by Madonna
Produced by Nicola Doring
Written by Madonna & Dan Cadan
Released by IFC Films
UK, 84 min. Not Rated
With Eugene Hütz, Holly Weston, Vicky McClure & Richard E. Grant
 

After she was already famous, Doris Lessing wrote a book under a pseudonym and submitted it to publishers to see how her work would be judged. Two promptly rejected it, and a third agreed to publish it because the style reminded him of the work of Doris Lessing. If you didn’t know ahead of time that Madonna’s Filth and Wisdom was made by the pop diva herself, you wouldn’t guess—yet it’s almost impossible for anyone to review it without considering it from that angle.

If I’d seen it without knowing about the Madonna connection, I would have guessed that Filth and Wisdom was a project by a sceney, twentysomething American male with indie cred and connections to Vincent Gallo or the Coppola family. It has a gritty, neo-seventies look that takes its cue from Gen Y cult films like Trainspotting and Black Cat, White Cat.

It’s the story of three London roommates: a Ukrainian gypsy-punker (Eugene Hütz), A. K., who works as a professional sadist whipping middle-aged men; Juliette, (Vicky McClure) an incest victim saving up money for a humanitarian trip to Africa; and Holly, a ballerina (Holly Weston) who becomes a stripper. Their lives intersect with others, including a blind poet (Withnail and I’s Richard E. Grant).

Madonna and co-writer Dan Cadan have tried to create a script rich with philosophical meaning, but instead, the project can’t escape its hipster atmosphere. It’s best when it sticks to being a vehicle for Eugene Hütz and his band Gogol Bordello, along the lines of The Who’s Tommy. The video montage sequences of Hütz getting beaten by his father as a child, struggling to get his big break as a musician, or, inspired by poetry, writing the song “Wanderlust King” are a bit predictable, but if you find Hütz sexy and Gogol Bordello rousing, they’ll work for you.

The great music, Grant’s charisma, and Hütz’s presence buoy the sagging parts of the script, but the character arcs are embarrassing. The glamorized stripper scenes, or a once-beautiful Indian wife weeping and clutching an old picture of herself after throwing a pot of rice in anger, cloy.

But if you try to forget that Filth and Wisdom is a Madonna movie, and you ignore its voice-over chestnuts of wisdom and scenes of indie-chic filth, it’s an oddly alluring Gogol Bordello video and Eugene Hütz showcase. Elizabeth Bachner
October 17, 2008