The husband and I sat down to watch The Book Of Revelation. Now TBOR is an Australian film. It was directed by Ana Kokkinos and honestly I hate agreeing with the husband on this note the movie quite frankly sucked. It had so much promise. (Well it could have….had it been written better, directed better. )
One word….Ballet! Now, I am not a ballet going type. I hired the movie on the premise that it would deconstruct the idea of stereotyped gender rolls, make me rethink the male as victim and woman as aggressor, when really all it did was suck the life out of you for 119minutes. But oh the dance scenes….it was like having my fingernails pulled. It was slow and torturous and if not for my husbands pithy comments and pained expression that made me laugh out loud I probably would have fallen asleep before Greta Sacchi even uttered I want you to dance without ego.
It did nothing to address man as victim save for a few small moments when Daniel goes to the police station to report that his “friend” had been abducted by three women and he was promptly laughed at.
The dialogue was stilted and awkward and though I am sure it was meant to be, to protray the stilted and awkwardness of the material, it really didn’t work for the film on any level.
So Daniel (our hero of the film) is abducted by three women. Three hooded women who also wear masks. They chain him up and for 12 days they use him as their sexual play thing. (My husband meanwhile is sitting there wondering why this is a bad thing) The point is meant to be that men can be victims too. That being seduced by three women is very different to being chained to the ground and made to perform for three women. (Something that is lost entirely on a man like mine) That sexual consent is sexual consent regaurdless of gender. And none was forthcoming.
But the film didn’t handle this very well. The only thing that seemed to victimise Daniel at all was a few small moments, one were he pisses himself because they won’t unchain him(they do however give him a somehwat slightly erotic sponge bath and change his clothes) and the other when they release the chains from his wrists and ankles and chain him instead by his balls.
Even his downward spiral in his quest to seek out his abusers was poorly done. Although in my husbands words…”I gotta commend his method of fucking as many women as he can till he finds the right ones.”
Collin Friels as a cop who specialises in sexual abuse and who was the ex husband of the choreographer of Daniels dance company was the only saving grace in this film. His scenes were steeped with feeling, they were more fluid, less inhibited, which is kind of ridiculous given that the world of the dancers is so stilted, so robotic and unfeeling, since dance is supposedly all about emotion. (There is one dance scene that seemed powerful to me, Daniel on his own, dancing his story, his abuse. but it is short lived.)
I felt incredibly let down by Australian Film. I have always been moved by its ability to shock, to dissect human failings at the very core, to really challenge the way we think by persuing taboo. (Think Bad Boy Bubby)
I wanted to like this movie. It’s a sad state of affairs when I would rather watch The Marine.
The Book of Revelations, time that would have been better spent doing the ironing. Perhaps when I have given the movie more time to sink in, to really think about what it was that rubbed me the wrong way about this film, then I can construct a more articulate criticism, but really, I just can’t form the words I really want. It really was that awful.
And I know it will be a cold day in Hell before my husband watches an Australian Film with me again.
