Boy Meets Girl

Being partly raised on horror movies, I thought I had seen it all. This is something comparable to Pasolinis SALO or the intense last half hour of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Boy Meets Girl is far better than SALO though. It's interesting that one still can get really moved and affected by a movie after all I've seen through the years. It kind of feels like I'm a "newborn" movie viewer, and makes me believe in the power of the medium again. While I didn't really know what to think immediately after watching it, when a couple of days had gone by, I concluded that it really is an exceptional and important movie. When I watch violence in other movies now, it feels too slick, glamourizing and "movie-stylized", while in this film one gets a gut wrenching feeling of what violence is like for real. That's due to Brady's technical brilliance, the unflinching long takes, merciless sound design (during the drug trip sequence) and believable performances. Seeing a slow revenge for unnoticed/secret crimes is also a masterstroke (Phonebooth, a decade later, had a similar plot in that someone's being watching you and noting down your crimes and now they are going to make you pay). The revelation by merciless interrogation exposes acts of violent homophobia and racism, brought into context for what they ultimately are, sickening and ugly no matter what motives lie behind them. One can argue about the excessive use of profanity being unnecessary but that is one of the films target points "they are only words" and in an 18 cert film safely used, but it is more like the whole film is an expressionistic nightmare like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari than reality normal anyway. The incessant drone on the soundtrack also signals a kind of journey into dangerous and uncharted territory of the human mind. The effective use of clever camera fading and fade up techniques, invisible cuts and so forth, makes me think that it is now possible for someone to actually make the movies Anthony Burgess predicted in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which are shown to Alex during his brainwashing. Scenes of ultra-violence filmed in long, sickening single takes, and one of the few passages in literature, which I find profoundly disturbing. Ultimately I must recommend this movie for everyone, but be prepared to be upset and shocked.

The main reason for me to rent this was the dvd-box, which stated it was the British answer to Man Bites Dog (C'est Arrive Pres De Chez Vous), probably a top 100 film of mine. Although Boy Meets Girl bears in fact little resemblance to it (it's more of a cross between Oodishon and Misery), it wasn't a complete waste.

A man, although married, meets a girl in a bar and goes home with her. There he's drugged up and when he awakes, finds himself strapped to a dentist chair.

Two women keep him there, with the eventual means of killing him, while meanwhile questioning him. All sorts of subjects are discussed, each one has it's own 'chapter' in the movie. While talking the women torture him as well. I won't go into it too deeply, but their means include a microwave, maggets and a dildo.

The problem this movie has is keeping things interesting, so at like 3/4 of the film we see a silly escape attempt to keep us awake. Not very convincing, that was. Also at the end of the film you feel like: so what does it all mean, where does this lead us? If going back to Man Bites Dog, that movie had more of a story to tell, and actually had an ending.

Too bad as it's not uninteresting what the makers try to do, but in the end they do kinda fail... 5/10.

From the Directors commentary we get the whole story of how this "film" came about:

Picture the scene: four students, a lot of beer, no money. "Hey" says one of them, "Why don't we make a film?". One of his slightly less moronic friends says: "But we have no money, we can't write scripts, no-one knows how to direct and no actors who can actually act will work with us!".

"Don't worry" replies the 1st student. "Leave all that to me..."

And thus Boy Meets Girl was born...

The genius of this film is that they entrusted all of crucial aesthetic elements to the least talented film-maker in the entire world - Ray Brady. He has now developed a cult following for making the most universally bad movies ever seen - he even surpasses Ed Wood.

The camerawork is worse than a home movie shot by a drunk, blind, amputee with CP. The dialogue is so stilted it conjures up visions of promotional catalogues for toenail clippers. The plot is non existent - man gets tied to a chair and tortured a lot - and it as about as "artsy" and "shocking" as bowl of soup. The acting reminds you of 1970's Open University programmes, but without the lecturers charm and on-screen charisma.

Basically this film takes self indulgent trite into a whole new dimension and you will leave it at best swearing never to watch a moving image on a screen for the rest of your life, and at worst planning genocide of the entire human race to ensure something like this is never made or seen again.

Fun for all the family!

Watching this savage look at the inner psyche of a twisted mind makes you shiver with fear, but you remain hooked with morbid fascination. Ignoring societies barriers, the film takes you through a world of sadism and pain, stripping away the rational filters which everyday life shrouds us in. This is a truly uncompromising work - going far further than "The Collector" dared to go. This is not a fun film - but it should be seen by anyone who ever wonders how far the human mind can go. A truly unique and important work.

Starting to work myself through the "Unearthed Films" I purchased recently, I decided to start with this interesting little take on a cross between "Man Bites Dog" and "Hard Candy". Basically a man picks up a woman at a bar, and they go back to her place. Big mistake. After passing out from a drugged drink, he wakes up finding himself strapped in a dentist chair, with this gorgeous woman ready to do as she pleases to him. The movie concentrates a lot on dialog and judgment regarding philosophical questions about society. Oh, and I might mention torture on her new guinea pig. The story takes a few twists and turns, but in the end, I found it very interesting despite the very low budget, the acting is top notch and the whole idea of the story pretty intriguing. It's nothing special, but a strange little film that "Unearthed" made available to people like me that like this sort of stuff.