High Art

A movie with a title like this one is bound to stay unknown and unpopular. Most people don't understand anything about modern art (I'm one of them) and certainly don't want to see a movie about its creation. But somehow I was curious about it, hoping that this movie would explain something about how it all works and that it would give me an insight in this unknown and isolated world.

Syd is the newly appointed assistant editor of Frame magazine, a magazine about art photography, who lives together with her boyfriend in an apartment. When there is a leak in their ceiling, she goes to the neighbors upstairs to complain. But what she didn't know is that this neighbor is no-one else than the talented and once famous photographer Lucy Berliner. Immediately she sees a nice opportunity to boost her career and starts hanging out more with Lucy and her junkie friends, who almost permanently seem to live in Lucy's apartment. She encourages Lucy to shoot new pictures for her magazine, but as they grow closer to each other, Syd's boyfriend becomes more and more jealous and Syd starts to fall in love with Lucy.

What I liked about this movie was that it was about a photographer, but that it never felt pretentious. Lucy felt like a normal woman and not like someone who thinks she is better, just because she is an artist. Also the contrast between Syd's relationship with the down-to-earth Lucy on one side and the pretentiousness of Lucy's drug using friends and the editors from Frame on the other, was refreshing. This isn't a movie that beautified the art world, this showed the hard reality. Take for instance the scene in which the head editors - who pretend to know all about photography - never have heard of Lucy Berliner, but don't want to admit that to their pears and therefor start lying or how they aren't interested in the art itself, but only in the money that it will earn for them as they publish it...

After I had seen this movie and already had decided what rating I would give it, I went to see on IMDb which rating this movie actually received from others. It struck me that most men seem to hate this movie, while almost all women seem to like it. Perhaps it is because those men hoped to see more of the lesbian relationship between the women (including a steaming sex scene), perhaps it was because they believed this was an 'art movie' (which in reality it isn't). Anyway, I'm a man too, but I liked what I saw. I found the contrasts in the story, the delicate love story,... and especially the ending all very interesting and moving. That's why I give this movie at least a 7.5/10.

High Art is a 1998 Canadian-American independent film directed by Lisa Cholodenko and starring Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell.

Plot of the movie: Sydney (or simply "Syd"), age 24, is a woman who has her whole life mapped out in front of her. Living with longtime boyfriend James, and working her way up at the respected high-art photography magazine Frame, Syd has desires and frustrations that seem typical and manageable. But when a crack in her ceiling springs a leak and Syd finds herself knocking on the door of her upstairs neighbor, a chance meeting suddenly takes her on a new path.

Opening the door to an uncharted world for Syd is Lucy Berliner, a renowned photographer, enchanting, elusive, and curiously retired. Now 40, Lucy lives with her once glamorous, heroin-addicted German girlfriend Greta, and plays host to a collection of hard-living party kids. Syd is fascinated by Lucy and becomes drawn into the center of Lucy's strangely alluring life upstairs.

Syd mentions Lucy to her bosses (without realising that she is famous) but they remain uninterested until they realise exactly who Lucy is. At a lunch, Lucy agrees to work for the magazine as long as Syd is her editor. Soon a working relationship develops between the two and a project is underway which promises a second chance for Lucy's career. But as Syd and Lucy's collaboration draws them closer together, their working relationship turns sexual and the lines between love and professionalism suddenly blur. As Syd slowly discovers the darker truths of Lucy's life on the edge, she is forced to confront her own hunger for recognition and the uncertain rewards of public esteem.

Sweet women and an impressive lesbian theme movie.

In 'the age of indies', where we currently find ourselves, a common technique is to heavy hand the viewer, scaring him with the harsh realities of some off-beat lifestyle.

And all those possibilities exist in High Art, where the real grunge of lower Manhattan is briefly exposed, yet here, the filmmaker chooses to seduce us with it, rather than hit us over the head.

Ally Sheedy does a good job as druggie social misfit, Lucy Berliner. Lucy's been able to lead a life devoid of any traditional responsibility, choosing instead to hang out with a sub-culture of drug motivated homosexual and asexual miscreants, where days and years pass by faster than a paper calendar unfurling in a Frank Capra movie.

That she might jump start a promising career as a photographer under the bright-eyed prodding of young Syd (Radha Mitchell) is not surprising, it's a familiar refrain. And that Lucy seduces Syd is also predictable.

Where the movie does surprise is the relaxed way in which it delivers it's message, and, although Sheedy and Mitchell are both very good, for my money the movie is damn near stolen by Patricia Clarkson, who is brilliant in every scene she plays. If you remember her as Ted Hoffman's caring, intelligent wife in year one of 'Murder One' you'll really appreciate what a marvelous actress she is.

I came in expecting to dislike the movie, and left quite pleased. I definitely recommend.

I am always on the lookout for good lesbian movies with good acting and they are very hard to find. High Art fills both criteria, but every time I watch this movie I feel depressed. I don't know why, especially since I don't mind "dark" movies in the least. The relationships between the characters just feel empty to me. And, I never quite know what to make of the heretofore straight girl who falls for the gay girl. It must be said that the acting is quite good, especially Patricia Clarkson as the drugged out girlfriend of Ally Sheedy. Sheedy is also fantastic as the burned out photographer Lucy Berliner. I just didn't relate to any of these characters or to their relationships with each other, and in the end did not really care who lived or died.

It seemed like Ally Sheedy hadn't done much since "The Breakfast Club" when she starred in "High Art", and she does a pretty good job here as photographer Lucy Berliner, who becomes involved with neighbor Syd (Radha Mitchell), and they both start reevaluating their lives.

I'll admit that this isn't the ultimate masterpiece or anything, but it is worth seeing as a look into the art world. These sorts of movies just go to show why indie flicks are more interesting than anything that Hollywood can conceive. Lisa Cholodenko followed it up with the perplexing, but also worth seeing, "Laurel Canyon". Also starring Patricia Clarkson and Tammy Grimes.