Customer Reviews

Practice of Love [VHS]

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(from the back of the Facets Video box): "'A dazzling cinematic tour-de-force, combining a thriller narrative with experimental images to tell the story of Judith, a journalist, whose investigation of a murder implicates her two male lovers (an arms dealer and a psychiatrist). Through these relationships, Judith discovers that in a world of male power struggles, love is complicit, marginal or impossible. The films makes a stunningly coherent indictment of male-dominated society' (National Film Theatre, London)...Valie Export is 'one of the five or six truly original filmmakers working in Europe today who have not been recognized widely and turned into classical "auteurs" and this is why each of her films seems initially disturbing, jarring, "difficult"' (Gary Indiana, East Village Eye)..."

Legendary performance and video artist VALIE EXPORT directs her first feature film THE PRACTICE OF LOVE following Judith, an ambitious journalist who is unraveling a murder mystery which concerns one of her current lovers. Acting as a meditation on deception, Judith's work and personal life slowly intertwine. For a debut feature, the style of the film is superbly refined, referencing and showcasing her performance and video art in numerous scenes as an added pleasure for fans of her work.

Export's acting is spot on and in parts remind me of one of Fassbinder's under-appreciated and troubled actresses. Though the film has its choppy moments in it's narrative structure, it works as an essential part in historicalizing Export's body of work as both a filmmaker and an artist. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!!!!