The Monkey's Mask

I could not find anything interesting in this film. Prose and poetry divided into chapter headings and dished up as an experimental film failed as a piece of entertainment. Let it be a lesson to other film makers.

Don't be misled by the title. The writer chose the title before she wrote the book because she rather liked the Japanese haiku of that name. Believe me, there are no monkeys or masks, but after due consideration they might have livened up the film.

The sex scenes were passable but with little delicacy. The writer said she had hoped for a more grubby presentation of those scenes. I could not see much point in the scene where the woman walks into a room with her panties off. Do lesbians like to advertise their pubic hair? On the positive side the cinema photography was excellent. Glimpses of Sydney harbour and its famous bridge put me in a great mood anticipating what beautiful scenes might follow. Alas! What a strange mixture.

In one of the final scenes we see a notice warning people to take care because the Sydney Harbour rocks are slippery. I waited in trepidation because i was sure something terrible was about to take place. But no! We hear a man addressing a lesbian investigator ...."Thank you for making love to my wife; you sure put a light in her eyes".

I'd be surprised to learn if a film like this could prove to be a profitable venture. My recommendation: AVOID!

I did enjoy The Monkey's Mask but lets face it, this script needed some more re-writing. Porter is very good and her character is interesting but she's really not cut out to be a private investigator. When she announces to someone that she's a PI working on the case you expect some of the characters to brush her aside and say "Beat it"! The chapter element of the film is really not needed. This film has no chapters. It's not that long of a film and it flows nicely so it was pointless to have it at all. I did enjoy the sex scenes with Kelly McGillis who doesn't appear in films nearly enough and she's always had great beauty and even though she's probably nearing 50, she looks great. I'm not buying the attraction of the two for each other but the nudity is pretty daring and I enjoyed the audacity of that part of the film. The whole way that she solves the case is not convincing and it looks like anyone could have figured it out. Not a bad little independent film from Australia. I recommend it for Porter's performance and her scenes with McGillis.

Titilating sex scenes make up for the disjointed story line. While investigating a missing-person case, a female detective(Susie Porter)is sidetracked when she enters a lesbian affair with a married professor(Kelly McGillis). Totally nude love scenes are interesting. Porter is a more convincing lesbian than private detective. And it is nice to see McGillis sans clothing. Also in the cast are:Abbie Cornish, Jean-Pierre Mignon and Marton Csokas. Cornish is very alluring and demands attention through her character's poetry. Strong sexual content and graphic dialogue are a plus for this crime drama.

"The Monkey's Mask" tells of a young Aussie woman who is 99.9% lesbian and 0.1% private detective charged with finding the killer of a young woman poet. A naive flick which has some style but precious little reason to watch or keep watching and no reason to care about any of the characters, "TMM" is mostly pretentious hogwash with people behaving in ways people only behave when they're acting in a movie. The film is annoyingly divided into chapters, the characters are boring, poetry and lesbian themes don't ring true, and the whole flick is about as palatable as Spackle on a Saltine. Passable stuff not worth the time. (C-)

Let me state first of all that I liked this film. It revolves around a female PI who is investigating the disappearance of young student poet who is later found murdered. She becomes involved in an affair with the student's teacher who may or may not be involved in the murder. It flows quite well maybe abit slowly for some but to me this is the right pace. The movie is delineated into sections much like a poem and in some ways the lead (admirably played by Susie Porter) seems to float through this world of poetry readings, steamy love trysts and threatening phone calls a player yet somehow disassociated from it all.

There were however some things that annoyed me a little about the whole film and while they didnt spoil it for me they nevertheless grated on me. Susie Porters character though solidly played nevertheless did not ring true to me. She is meant to be a working class ex-cop familar with the mean streets of Western Sydney now navigating her way through this bunch of artsy intellectual types. She didnt quite ring true to me - she almost seemed part of that crowd herself - her outsider status wasnt obvious to this viewer.

I found the some of the use of nudity and sexual profanity abit try hard. What I mean by this is that it was almost abit forced.To me It looked as though it was saying look how comfortable we are in showing nudity etc,I suspect it was almost there to spice things up rather than being integral to the plot (to be fair a pretty hard line to draw on many occasions).I also found the whole characterisation of the murdered girl and her parents abit annoying. The parents are cardboard carictures of what inner city intellectuals view the suburbanites (with money) as -dull boring and clueless , & the murdered girl is portrayed as some spoilt little brat from the leafy suburbs on a parent subsidised rebellion - another cliche. I find this more than a little ironic as the subject matter of this film is likely to draw an audience (in Australia anyway) that is largely the arthouse end of the market (ie monied and educated) Anyway these points though somewhat annoying to this viewer really are only minor distractions.Overall the film is worth seeing.