Um Caso Meio Incomum

When I saw this movie, I thought it was surreal. Then I moved to New York and realized that it was just being honest. The movie takes place against the colorful (sometimes to a ridiculous extent) new york artist scene. I never read the book, so I don't really know (or care) if the movie was true to it or not, but I thought that all the characters were well developed and gave some hilarious performances. The plot flowed seamlessly and by the end you know that, despite the fact that little of what you saw made much sense, there is some strange order to the world and that it's all good. I find myself recommending this movie to all my friends as I would recommend it to anyone interested in New York, art, or the simultaneous crappiness and lovableness of humanity.

Following all the Merchant-Ivory productions in the past, where it took place mainly in Victorian England, those were all ensemble movies, with Helena Bonham Carter at the center of it all. Bernadette Peters could be considered a contemporary version of Bonham Carter's characters. Being that these hapless characters are caught in the middle leading their daily lives with eccentric characters around them. I enjoyed over the years watching this film for several reasons, first one the artwork that is featured in it, next is the music, another this could have been a good lead in for a television series(not the big reason, but part of it. The characters play well off each other, and also gives that feeling of six degrees of separation. I've read the book and it would be hard to film it since it was a collection of short stories, however Merchant-Ivory pulled it off.

This over-long look at New York's art scene in the 1980 is based on a book of short stories by Tama Janowitz. Like the stories, this film has lots of characters and a meandering plot that basically follows Eleanor (Bernadette Peters) through her life of being a New York "slave" (a person who lives with a person who owns the house or has the lease for the apartment), designing weird hats, looking for love, and the endless whirl of parties, art openings, and friends.

Peters lives with an artist named Stash (Adam Coleman Howard)who is self-absorbed and unpleasant. Stash latches onto wealthy Daria (Madeleine Potter) who is a would-be artist but is too wealthy to really care. They run in the same circle as Marley (Jsu Garcia billed as Nick Corri) who paints but who really wants to start a church in Rome. His agent (Mary Beth Hurt) puts him in touch with a wealthy nutjob (John Harkins) who finances all sorts of weird "art" projects such as the guy in Montana who moves mud from one end of the garden to the other.

The plot follows Peters but also exposes the incredible arrogance of art as well as its cyclic trendiness. What is art? Who knows.

Co-stars in the film include Stanley Tucci, Tammy Grimes, Christine Dunford, Tama Janowita (as Abby), Steve Buscemi, Betty Comden, Chris Sarandon, Mercedes Ruehl, Michael Schoeffling, Bruce Peter Young, Louis Guss, Anthony LaPaglia, and Charles McCaughan as Sherman.

There's a brilliant and very funny interlude as three drag queens with a boom box and dressed in skin-tight red gowns parade down the street as the Supremes lip-syncing to "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart." The sequence is just another look at fun and silliness of performance art.

I LOVED the book....and come on, piecing together the book into any sort of coherent film couldn't have been the easiest endeavour, and the result really isn't so bad! Looking back on this film 11 years later it truly DOES seem to capture the time and place effectively and has what amount to basically cameos of Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, and Mercedes Ruehl.

Eleanor is the last person who should be living in the tough low echelons of the New York City art world in the 1980s. She describes herself: "I'm a normal person. I'm trying to achieve the middle class." And: "I find fun very traumatizing. To me, having fun is almost identical to feeling anxious." The very first scene shows her walking home with two big grocery bags and a big Dalmatian dog. She finally makes it, but barely. That's her situation. She is out of her depth, but bravely - or mindlessly - soldiers on.

Eleanor lives in the apartment of the rude small-time artist Stash. She says she loves him and he most of the time kind of tolerates her. In her daily life she is surrounded by crazy people, by wanna-be artists and their entourages. In a noisy crowded nightclub her body just gives up and she collapses. She is diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, something typically triggered by emotional stress.

Eleanor is enslaved by the idea that she has to live in an environment that for a normal and anxious person like herself must most of the time feel like hell. She is even dabbling in art herself, making grandiose, grotesque hats. If the devil is really out to get her, they will somehow become a success, the novelty of a day, binding her even harder to a place that - as her body knows - is very detrimental to her health.

"Slaves of New York" tells a sad story and it's not an entertaining one. The art scene is bleak and unappealing. All the relationships are tainted. Most of the people are terrible. The Dalmatian is kind of okay, though. Will the cute little puppy Eleanor find an exit? If not herself, will somebody else learn from her mistakes?