FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
GEORGES BATAILLE'S STORY OF THE EYE
According to an intertitle quote by French iconoclast Georges Bataille
(1897-1962), "Arranging narrative is a bourgeois narrative." So perhaps it is
fitting that this riff of a film has a free-form structure. There is literally no story or
coherent theme to speak of, only in-your-face assaultive images and sounds.
Inspired by but not based upon Bataille's sexually graphic novella Story of the
Eye, director Andrew McElhinney dares the viewer to look away from the very
beginning during a mock reenactment of Bataille's birth (actually
archival footage of a breach birth with blood, forceps and all). After a brief
summary of the writer's life, the dream-like, sexually-charged imagery takes over.
A slim, bleach-blond white sailor boy with a Prince Albert is dominated by his
black, leather-clad daddy. A topless, blindfolded female dancer stumbles upon a
chained woman, frees her from her cage, and continues to feel her way around, so to speak.
Like porn, the sex here is mechanical, wordless, flatly lit (it is shot on video), and
ultimately dull. Even the synthesizer score is generic.
The carnality is anything but titillating. With its cast of blasé, bruised,
tattoo-adorned and shell-shocked refugees drifting about a decrepit
setting, this is more like apocalyptic porn. Although doubtlessly provocative, the
repetitive tone and "action" is a test of patience. I for one failed. Kent Turner
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