Exotica

Don't be fooled by the soft-porn title or the "sexy thriller" style art on the VHS box and DVD cover. This, like Egoyan's follow-up masterpiece "The Sweet Hereafter" is an intricate, elliptical, and tragic look at grief and loss focusing on the people who work at and patronize a Toronto strip club. It's all very literary and symbolic (the exotic creatures of the pet shop being audited by Bruce Greenwood's tax man with a sad secret mirroring the exotic dancers of the club where he finds his solace after hours) and surprisingly emotional (especially at the end). Character development, secrets, and inner truths are revealed slowly and carefully and in non-linear fashion by Egoyan's delicate director's hand. The "exotic" flavored yet haunting musical score is an added bonus. Worth a look if you are in the right mood and know what to expect from Egoyan.

Interesting opening credits. Interesting cast. Interesting use of Leonard Cohen's song. But in totality, just above average. The film deals with a set of characters, each having some sort of a psychological problem. Visually strong, but content-wise very weak.

This is my first Egoyan film. He has evidently some talent to make a viewer sit up and expect the unusual. But why populate an entire film with problem characters? That's not reality.

The most interesting bit was actor Don McKellar who plays Thomas is made to look like the director Atom Egoyan, complete with his glasses. Is that an autobiographical touch?

Like other Egoyan films, this one starts like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, with the missing pieces added as it progresses. However, it is not the plot that is the most important part of the film but the intriguing interactions between the characters. There's the auditor trying to overcome a painful past while reviewing the books of the gay pet shop owner. Then there's the lesbian strip club owner, the jailbird stripper, and the DJ who completes the volatile love triangle. There is fine acting by the entire cast, with Greenwood and Koteas specially good. The music by Danna perfectly underscores the sense of mystery. Egoyan masterfully balances the plot lines until the pieces come together to form a nearly complete picture - there are still unanswered questions for the viewer to ponder!

Perhaps Atom Egoyan's most successful film. Egoyan's technique is to fracture a story like a jigsaw puzzle, giving the viewer bits and pieces which only all connect in the final scene. That ripping apart of reality is especially appropriate here, since the movie is about people putting their lives together after terrible trauma. It's also about the danger in leaping to conclusions - the viewer is often tempted to make a judgement about what he or she sees, and that judgement is often both wrong and unfair. If this all sounds like homework, be assured that the movie is also a lot of fun: it's sexy and interesting and inspired.

I can't remember seeing a film as intriguing, complex, and beautifully photographed as "Exotica." I nearly didn't watch it because the video cover advertized it as an "erotic thriller" and the image on the front is of Mia Kirchner doing her strip-tease bit. Granted, "Exotica" centers around a "gentleman's club" of the same name, but to call this film a simple erotic thriller is to miss out on a lot, on too much.

"Exotica" follows four seemingly unrelated storylines: a man sitting alone at a table in a strip club, another man smuggling exotic parrot eggs into the country ("Exotica" takes place in and around Toronto), two apparent strangers walking in a field of green, and a young girl who plays a flute in an empty house. Egoyan begins with these vastly different puzzle pieces then slowly, inexorably brings them together.

Atom Egoyan is one heck of a masterful director. He is the epicenter of this cinematic symphony that leads carefully from movement to movement until the finale bursts forth in equal measure of catharsis, discovery, and tragedy. Plot to him is like tapestry weaving. He threads narrative, characters, time, and setting in such complicated iterations that one is at once nearly overwhelmed by the intricacy and awed at his skill, a testament to his brilliance as well as his belief that a film-going audience is actually intelligent.

At it's heart, "Exotica" is a tragedy of circumstances. Or better yet, a collision of tragedies of circumstances. Indeed, the film isn't so much about tragedy as it is about those who survive tragedy and the toll a single event can exact for the rest of the lives of those who survive. Exotica, the gentleman's club, serves merely as a focal point where all these individual tragedies radiate to.

Equally haunting in all this is the music. Mychael Danna's score sets the film's tone: dark, "exotic," deceptively simple but savvier than it lets on. Also worthy of note is the music in the club itself, a blend of American house funk and Middle Eastern tones, warbled in Arabic.

I highly recommend this film. Ignore the naked women who sashay from time to time in front of the screen (difficult as that may be at times) in the scenes shot in the club. The really interesting stuff occurs at the margins of the film, as the gulf separating the storylines begin to vanish, and the final scene gives you the keystone to a horrifying clear vision of a sadness so overwhelming that no one in the film escapes unscathed.