The Politics of Fur

I can't say that I've seen anything like this movie. I've seen a couple of other films from this director and each one is worse than the previous one. It was recently screened at a film festival and there were so many walkouts. Do yourself a favor and skip it. It's truly terrible.

I went into this film expecting the worst since I don't care for remakes, but what I got was something daring and original. Fur takes the basics from Fassbinder's original and takes it to another level.

The cinematography and direcion are excellent and the acting is superlative, especially by the lead, Katy Selverstone, who could have gone the easy route and camped it up but instead gives an absolutley riveting and engaging performance. I saw this at a festival but hopefully it will get a wider release

The Politics of Fur (2002) was presented at the Rochester ImageOut film festival. I assume it was chosen because three main characters are lesbian or gay, and ImageOut is Rochester's gay and lesbian film festival. However, just because a film features gay and/or lesbian characters doesn't mean it is good enough to be shown at this important festival.

There were two excellent aspects to this particular showing of The Politics of Fur. The first was the very gracious speech made by Laura Nix, the director and screenwriter. The second positive aspect of the event was the presence of Katy Selverstone, who is the film's star. She is extremely beautiful on screen and in person.

That's about all I can say in praise of this movie. Ms. Selverstone plays Una, a entertainment industry wheeler-dealer who "puts people together" and apparently reaps immense financial benefits from doing so. She is given the "gift" of a tough young rock singer, who has not talent, no personality, no intellect, and--for me--no redeeming virtue. The rest of the story unfolds in a tedious and predictable fashion.

The most interesting aspect of this film came from a laughable mistake. In one scene, we are presented with seemingly endless views of Ms. Selverstone's very dirty feet. Obviously, this scene was shot after the scene that could explain this out-of-character lack of hygiene. My question--Didn't anybody notice? If the director didn't notice, didn't the camera operator? (OK--it was low budget film. But couldn't they afford soap?)

Stay away from this one. It's a loser.

I went into this film expecting the worst since I don't care for remakes, but what I got was something daring and original. Fur takes the basics from Fassbinder's original and takes it to another level. The cinematography and direcion are excellent and the acting is superlative,

especially by the lead, Katy Selverstone, who could have gone the easy route

and camped it up but instead gives an absolutely riveting and engaging

performance. I saw this at a festival but hopefully it will get a wider release

The first hour of this movie is excellent.

It deals with themes like how sexual orientation affects personality and vice versa in a way that's intelligent and accessible. It's fascinating to watch how the butch/femme roles are played around with in a lesbian relationship between a high powered music agent and a feral rock chick. It's filmed sparsely, almost all the scenes shot in one room, placing a lot of pressure on the actors, who handle it quite well. Towards the end they aren't served very well by a script in which one of them breaks down in a way that's not very believable.

It's a pity, as it was really enthralling up till then.