The Secret Cinema

Death Race 2000 director Paul Bartel's debut feature is this short film. Its about a young woman whose life is disastrous - crap job, annoying mother, useless boyfriend, etc. To make matters worse wherever she goes, she gets the feeling she's being watched. Well, it turns out she's right! As her every move is being surreptitiously filmed and then edited together and shown weekly at the Secret Cinema where the audience can laugh at her expense. This is a pretty effective bit of strangeness and is definitely worth 30mins of your time.

I only saw this short subject once and never forgot it. Three whole decades before THE TRUMAN SHOW, there was this early work by Paul Bartel about a woman who slowly comes to realize that her life is being secretly filmed and shown for the entertainment of her close "friends" and "family" as well as the general masses. I thought that this short conveyed the pain and paranoia of invaded privacy much better than TRUMAN and in a much shorter time as well. "Secret Cinema" was remade by Bartel as an episode of Steven Spielberg's AMAZING STORIES, but didn't have anywhere near the impact that the original had. Not only that, but it was given a sickeningly sweet happy ending that ruined the theme of the original story. Now I feel vindicated because whenever I described this film to friends, most of them looked as if I was making it up or dreamed it. Now, here is the proof. Look for this film, it will be well worth the hunt.

Recently I've stumbled onto a few of the films made by the late Paul Bartel. I always liked him from his roles in films like "Rock 'n' Roll High School" and "Tales of the City," but I had no idea he was the man who made "Eating Raoul" (which I've been dying to see for years) and "Death Race 2000" (which I finally saw a week or so ago). As you can tell, I have bad taste... While browsing through a used video store, I found Rhino's release of this film, which was packaged with "Naughty Nurse" and an intro by Bartel himself.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good "Secret Cinema" is. The acting was good all-around, though some would probably gripe about the bad dubbing (particularly Helen, the black woman, who's voice never once matched her lips). With the Twilight-Zone-ish premise of someone who's unaware that their life is being filmed, this seems to be the original, made long before "The Webbers" (an always-overlooked gem) and the dull "Ed TV" and "The Truman Show." And I just have to rave about the woman who played three roles - she cracked me up in her role as the nurse! Amazingly for a film of this era, the picture quality was outstanding - usually you get a rather worn print, filled with scratches, anomalies, and cigarette burns - but the Rhino print looked like it just came out of the editing room. Now I'm curious to see the "Amazing Stories" remake again. I know I saw it years ago, but I remember absolutely nothing about it.

As for the companion short film, "Naughty Nurse," it doesn't seem to fit with the tone of "Secret Cinema." With its strange eroticism and bizarro ending, it seems better suited to play with "Death Race 2000" or perhaps "Eating Raoul." But that's a different review...

An influential (in it's time), inventive 30 minute black and white short that examined an 'Ed TV' like idea way before others did. A woman has her life secretly filmed, edited and shown to a laughing audience each week. Far more surreal and stylized than the features and TV shows that later used this concept, it's stylish, a lot of fun and effectively creepy. On the other hand, the acting is amateurish, production values nonexistent, and the post dubbed sound is pretty awful. But somehow, that homemade quality sort of works with the story. Worth seeing if you have any interest in the semi-experimental late 60s cinema that combined what would have been sleaze with far more artistic aspirations (Brian DePalma, Bartel, and many others were part of this art/exploitation film trend).

The plot of "The Secret Cinema" is a clever one, sort of in the vein of "The Truman Show" but with major stylistic and tonal differences. It is a small scale indie horror comedy that plays with genre and self awareness to a mind boggling and extremely entertaining extent. There are moments of hilarity and moments of genuine horror (particularly the ending), and the entire film encompasses a bizarre, Gothic atmosphere. It is shot beautifully no matter how low quality the print you watch it on is; the lighting is often dark and shadowy and it has a charmingly amateurish feeling about it. The story's increase in intensity never terminates its comedy, and vice versa; the two coexist in a manner accomplished by few other films of its genre.

In its own, unconventional and fresh way, "The Secret Cinema" tells a fun, "Twilight Zone"-type story and taking full advantage of it. Its as if Rod Serling decided it was time to broadcast an episode that functioned as an avant garde art-house black comedy mystery horror movie...and, simply put, it's really, really great!