Customer Reviews

Kissed [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Brace yourself. If you are squeamish or tend to faint at the sound of the word necrophilia, you will probably not care to read the reviews let alone rent the videotape. Let me tell you upfront that you'd be making a huge mistake & missing out on a truly remarkable film which never really has gotten it's dues.

Molly Parker gives a full-bodied (no pun intended) performance as a young woman by the name of Sandra obsessed with deceased young men. It's as if our lead character Sandra can feel their dreams, their sadness, & is able to somehow make a connection with these expired young bodies as she later tells us. For some strange reason, this provides comfort & consolation I suppose for it eases her mind that she too will one day cross over as well.

To FURTHER complicate matters, Sandra meets a young college student who is as intrigued by her fascination with death as he is romantically attached to her. Needless to say, their relationship takes an awful turn as the film progresses.

Although quite sad & a bit eccentric, Kissed reminds of us how we fail to see while we are still in the world of the living. It seems as if we only notice certain things about ourselves or others after they have crossed over or left their earthly home. Many could argue or debate that we shouldn't be reminded through a controversial film such as this but then how could appreciate life anymore without it? Watch Kissed with an open mind & brace yourself once again as you hear the haunting music of Sarah McLachlan while the credits pass before our eyes.

It is about a coming of age for the heroine of the movie, Molly Parker. She plays a woman who is obsessed with young deceased men and finds herself working at mortuaries so that she can be intimate with them. While I do not think necrophilia is something positive, it is a psychopathology that does occur and often by employees in the funerary business.

Again, the film is an interesting and under-rated one that is quite interesting, well-acted and quite enjoyable. I love films that are creatine and this one is definitely for you broad-minded people who want to see something artistic and not mainstream, yet done tastefully. Without giving away the plot, I highly recommend this contraversial film.

This movie is based on a wonderful, transcendent short story by Barbara Gowdy that's called "We So Seldom Look on Love". It's a very faithful adaptation. The story and movie deal with a young woman's perceptions of the recently dead, the spiritual energy that they radiate, and her very special relations with the departed. The adoration of a body as its energy is blazing away from life to death is presented in such a way as to make the act known as necrophilia into something holy, a spiritual service to the departed, and an act of communion for the lover of the dead.
This excerpt from the prologue of the story gives a good flavor for what you may expect in the film:
"When you die, and your earthly self begins turning into your
disintegrated self, you radiate an intense current of energy. There is
always energy given off when a thing turns into its opposite, when love, for
instance, turns into hate. There are always sparks at those extreme points.
But life turning into death is the most extreme of extreme points. So just
after your die, the sparks are really stupendous. Really magical and explosive.
I've seen cadavers shining like stars. I'm the only person I've ever
heard of who has. Almost everyone senses something, though, some vitality.
That's why you get resistance to the idea of cremation or organ donation. 'I
want to be in one piece,' people say... [but] no matter what you do - slice open the flesh, dissect everything, burn everything - you're in the path of a power way beyond your little
interferences."
The story and the movie are both exquisite creations, remarkable achievements, and carry my highest recommendation.

Director/producer/writer Lynne Stopkewich seems to be improving steadily. Finally, in this low-budget film, a professional "feel" is present most of the time.

The acting of the two stars--Molly Parker as Sandra Larson and Peter Outerbridge as Matt--is flawless. She appeared in Stopkewich's SUSPICIOUS RIVER and is probably best known as the elegant widow in HBO's series "Deadwood"; he appeared in LUCKY NUMBER SLEVEN as Dumbrowski. A few of the other actors are adequate, but several come across as rather wooden and amateurish.

The basis of the plot is a Stephen-King-like premise: Ms. Parker's character believes that for a short while dead people's bodies still contain some sort of vital energy which is released if one "loves" them, allowing the living "partner" to know the individual, unique essences of these people to a degree otherwise impossible in human life. While working at a funeral home, Sandra has tested this many times before she meets Matt. When she tells him what she has been doing and why, he is intrigued and then wishes to confirm this for himself, but she refuses to take him to the funeral home after hours to do so. Can you guess HOW he is able to get around her refusal in order to discover whether she is right? (It makes "sense" in a way, but be warned: if somebody close to you has died violently in the last 3 or 4 years, you may not be ready for Matt's solution. You may never be ready.)

As for the necrophilia, ho---hum. It is "tastefully depicted" (as much as such a thing can be). Certainly some people will be too sensitive to deal with even the mention of the topic, but here it presented as a weird sort of SPIRITUAL THING and NOT some sort of kinky erotic turn-on for the audience--or some ghoulishly horrible act.

Based on some of the reviews I had read a couple years before watching this movie, I had expected "Kissed" to be absolutely raunchy. However, this movie is anything but. It's very tastefully done, though there is quite a bit of sex/nudity--appropriate, unexploited sex/nudity, that is, if there is such a thing. I suppose it's the subject matter--necrophilia--that bothers most people. I don't find it appealing either, but by the end of the movie, I found it slightly easier to understand Sandra Larson's internal struggle and obsession with death, rather than snickering or grimacing at it. Did I completely comprehend what she meant? Not really, but that's okay.

As a whole, I gave "Kissed" 3½ stars, mainly because it was a bit too long, even though it is just 80 minutes. The real story seemed to begin about halfway through the movie when Sandra (played by Molly Parker) is fully into the mortuary profession and starts dating a young medical student, Matt (Peter Outerbridge). In my opinion, "Kissed" would have made a better short film by eliminating the beginning section with Sandra as a troubled youth. Her childhood flashback didn't have much to do with the later story, just to prove her early fascination with dead things, I guess.

Probably the best part of this romantic drama is the last half hour or so, where Matt tries to "compete for Sandra's affection" by reaching her the only way she understands--through death. I don't want to give too much away, but the ending is absolutely superb and touching, wrapping up with a haunting Sarah McLachlan song: "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy".

Overall, this movie is pretty good, though a bit more subdued than I had expected; plus a bit drawn-out, as I mentioned before. Yet I'd still recommend "Kissed" to those who enjoy slightly offbeat, provocative indie films.

Kissed is the type of movie that you don't invite the inlaws over to watch. I saw it the movie theater about a year ago. I was so amazed by this movie that I've been trying to buy it. The end is beautifully bizarre. Go rent this movie. Put the web-site in your favorites. Buy the soundtrack.

In most movies, necrophilia is either hinted about ('American Gothic') or used as a joke ('Dodgeball'). You rarely, if ever, see it portrayed onscreen. "Kissed" does just that. Instead of making the character a sick perverted person, the filmmakers actually present you with a character you come to like. This character is Sandra, played by Molly Parker (HBO's "Deadwood"). As a child, Sandra develops a fascination with death that continues into adulthood. Once she gets a job at a funeral parlor and becomes an apprentice embalmer, she begins having sex with the cadavers. She doesn't do it to fulfill some kind of sick desire, but does it because it becomes a need. An experience she can't live without or explain. Then Sandra meets Matt (Peter Outerbridge), a person who indetifies with Sandra and shows no emotion when she reveals her secret to him. Instead, he becomes fascinated with the subject as well which leads to the final scene in the movie. The movie is haunting, but not disgusting or exploitive. No one who sees this movie should feel sickened by what Sandra is doing. It's not that what she's doing isn't disgusting, it's that the filmmakers don't make it look disgusting. Some of the reviews on the DVD proclaim the film to be poetic and provocative. It's both, but definitely the former. It's told very poetically, which is helped by Parker's voice-overs. Having only seen Molly Parker in "Deadwood" I'm impressed by how strong an actress she is. A lot of lesser actresses could've taken the dialogue and actions that occur in the film and made it campy. Parker nails everything dead-on (no pun intended...I'm serious, that was an accident). General audiences won't find this movie enjoyable; It's slow-moving and it's subject matter will most definitely steer people away. It's no masterpiece, but this is a movie that comes out of nowhere and hits you pretty hard.

GRADE: B+

A touching and humanistic look at a young female necrophiliac. Explores the roots of her fascination with death and her adult sexual conflicts. I like how this movie de-categorizes people with sexual deviations; we cannot so readily label this woman a "pervert" after we see this movie. We can identify with her because, we all have secrets and skeletons. "Mental disorders" are not so easily dismissed when we see how they develop from circumstances that could've happened to any of us.

I recently rented Kissed based on a scant review in a local paper. This movie is to necrophelia as Nabokov's Lolita is to fiction. Partly shocking, at times embarrassing, and always captivating. I was compelled to watch it again. Such a disturbing subject is treated w/ absolute eroticism and warmth. How can this be? Watch it for yourself.

This is the kind of movie that leaves an indelible impact. The film is bathed in a strange erotic tension simlilar to David Cronenberg's Crash. And I know the in that in 10 to 15 years from now I will meet younger people who will tell me that this film changed their lives. I was also convinced of this when I saw Crash. (It's odd that both of these films are Canadian.) The subject, necrophilia, is dealt with as a dreamlike spiritual awakening. Molly Parker's portrayal of Sandra Larson is so luminescent that is hard not to believe the sincerity of her beliefs. One is tempted, as is her boyfriend Matt, to join her on this dark mystic quest. As a challenge to conventional morality the film is largely successful. It leaves a unique residue behind in the mind with it's necrotic illumination and funery chill. However the Director isn't exactly playing her hand straight. The story in it's deepest origins is based on the events concerning Karen Greenlee in Sacramento California. An interview with Greenlee in the book Apocalypse Culture (Feral House) reveals not illumination but extreme spiritual breakdown. Drugs, suicide attempts and compulsive behavior litter the interview and its accompanying introduction. Necrophilia is not a road to enlightenment. It is a breakdown of the human soul... a dark strangling condition. The lie in KISSED is that the absolutely sincere and haunting character as brilliantly acted by Molly Parker in anyway reflects any necrophiliac in existence. This lie is underscored by the complete absence of any family members speaking in their own words or reacting to her personality. There is no real past for Sandra. No true human motivation. I would hate to think of the effect of this film upon a young high school aged girl in the midst of the usual selfdoubts related to sex and relationships. My conclusion is that this film is certainly well made and worth seeing but..... it is ultimately a dangerous lie. And in the wrong eyes will most certainly inspire some sad dreams and perhaps even deeds.