Customer Reviews

Variety

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the second film I watched this week that was mis-marketed with a misguiding box cover and press. Variety is neither a "a Daring Departure Into the Dark, Obsessional World of Female Fantasy," nor is it a"sexually-charged tale" in the sense one thinks of sexually-charged tales. It's intent is not to titillate.

It's a character study and a very interesting one. I see parallels here to Taxi Driver; a depiction of urban (NYC) alienation and isolation and an individual's reaction to their environment. Here the character is turning to sex instead of violence. Which is to say Variety is not a sexually charged tale, in the same way Taxi Driver is not an action movie.

It's cerebral, character-driven, meditatively paced. It's not Scorcese ...but ... it's not boring.

A must for anyone who loves avant-garde author Kathy Acker since she wrote the script. The book centres on the world of pornography and draws an interesting feminist critique. Many film critiques deal with the "male gaze" but this film centres on the "female gaze": the protagonist's objectification of the men who are objectifying her by their pornographic interests. A long, slow meditation this film inverts male-female power structures and gives one a non-sensationalized look of the hegemonic male world of pornography. The film does aptly well for having been shot on a shoe-string budget, and the soundtrack is by the same guy that did Jarmucsh's "Down By Law."

VARIETY is a riveting and brilliant movie. The movie starts with the protagonist, Christine, swimming laps in a pool. We see her supple body and athletic strength as she swims, and her flat stomach in her red and white striped swimsuit. As the camera comes in very close, Christine herself disappears, and all that is left is her candy-striped swimsuit moving through the water. Next, she speaks to a friend in the locker room while the girls get dressed. The entire shot is played in a static wide two-shot in the mirror, as they look at themselves and each other. The camera has strategically failed so far to capture these women as objects of a voyeuristic gaze, even though they are wearing skimpy garments such as a bathing suit, form-fitting tights, and a bra. It becomes clear that we are witnessing something different than what we are used to, which is scantily clad young women filmed with no erotic intent. And we feel struck by the oddness of that, although it's a locker room sequence that any woman would find very natural in real life. It's already clear, in just these two short sequences, that this is a film that will question who is looking, what the camera records, and the nature of cinematic voyeurism.

But for all that, it is never didactic, dry, or dull. The film is highly entertaining and well-paced throughout as it details the Christine's journey into the world of sexual desire through her discovery of pornography. Getting a job as a ticket-taker in a porn theater, she becomes curious about the men who frequent the theater and about what they consume, and herself becomes a voyeur to their world and to one man in particular, whom she stalks. Bette Gordon has constructed a character who is watched and also watches, and through Christine details the nature of pornography, which is all about longing which is never fulfilled except through the act of looking (a metaphor for all cinema). The world that's created is a world in reverse of how most movies construct desire and looking, a world in which men are threatened when women engage in their own sexual looking and express their own desires (the men in the film are threatened by Christine, and the male cinema audience is potentially threatened by Bette Gordon, who expresses desire by making this film). It's refreshing to see such reversals, especially when it's all done so playfully and with so much humor. It's quite funny to see Christine, who looks like she could be a professional porn star, follow a middle-aged man with the tenacity of a man stalking a Playboy bunny.

I found it to be an erotic movie as well, especially in terms of how it captured the hot and heavy atmosphere of 42nd St. in the early '80s, and also how it captured the erotic imagination of Christine, who at times is almost overbrimming with the excesses of her own fantasy life that the pornographic screen images have inspired. Other New York landscapes and people are also beautifully and expertly rendered, especially the scenes in the bar with the girls chatting, the scene at Yankee Stadium during a game, the scenes of the subway, and the scenes at the fish market. Any lover of cinema verité is sure to be astonished by the sheer craft of this film, not to mention the engaging and natural acting from all of the cast.

the cover shows sandy mcleod in a nice leather outfit. that's about a 10 second clip in the movie. this thing is dreadful. it is not a sexually charged tale as stated in the synopsis. there is no nudity, no sex, and nothing close to either. it's about a woman who works as a ticket taker at an adult movie theater. she accepts her job and that's about it. again, the synopsis is not even close when it says she is gets obsessed with pornography. she basically stalks a date that stood her up. and that's it. if this movie is suppose to be an independent film about feminism, then this movie has pushed feminism back 50 years. the dialogue is dull and the filming is flat. rent this if you must, but i caution you about spending hard-earned money on a copy.