Month: July 2020

Zombie for Sale (Gimyohan Gajok)

Posted on by Paul Risker

When illegal human experiments go wrong, an undead test subject escapes from Korea’s biggest pharmaceutical company and winds up at a shabby gas station run by the Park family. Upon discovering their strange visitor, the head of the household is bitten, but instead of transforming into the undead, he is revitalised and full of life. Seeing this the misfit family that spans three generations, hustling passers-by to make ends meet decide to monetise their fountain of youth, and soon the locals are queuing up to be bitten too.

Director Lee Min-Jae describes his feature debut Zombie for Sale (Gimyohan gajok) as, “…a slightly unfamiliar and odd zombie film.” The quirks of a zombie that likes human flesh with ketchup and whose bite revitalises his victims, brands this as one of the more curious entries in the sub-genre in recent years.

Min-Jae flips the tropes of the genre, reframing the monster as a fountain of youth or elixir of life, as opposed to its familiarity as an harbinger of walking death. It’s a creative move, but as he proves, you can only push back so much before the familiar reasserts itself. Zombie for Sale is an experiment in offsetting familiar conventions with the unusual, but the peril the filmmaker faces is from an audience a film of two halves may divide – creativity that descends into the familiar apocalyptic mêlée.

Cinema is saturated with the zombie film, the image or scenes of characters under siege and pursued by the undead a familiar sight. From conversations with critics and friends, I’ve picked up on a feeling that the sub-genre has become tedious. This exposes the irony of the familiar to both attract and repel. For any new addition to the undead canon that wants to appeal beyond the die-hard fan, it needs to repackage the familiar, but is this enough, and is it possible even?

A mix of zom-rom-com, well over half of the film is devoted to the comedy – around 70 minutes in total of its 122 minute runtime. The horror is held until the outbreak inevitably hits, and its here that the filmmakers creativity begins to feel stifled.

The earlier comedy had me chuckling along more than any film has in a while. This is in part due to the emotionally expressive nature of the Korean characters – a friend who has spent time in Korea has told me that they are as passionate and expressive offscreen as they are onscreen. I find there’s something larger than life to the Korean character, truth merged with emotion that feels untruthful and heightened for performance in Western cinema. In Zombie for Sale, such emotionally expressive characters add to the appeal of the comedy and charm of this dubious family of hustlers.

There is a lack of character development, but Min-Jae shows the effectiveness of sparing character detail, particularly for Hae-Gul (Soo-kyung Lee), the daughter of the family, who confides in their undead guest, her love interest about her mother’s death during child-birth. A seed of information replaces her dramatic arcs, re-surfacing to have the chaos resonate for her on a personal level. Similar touches for the other characters would have been welcome, although the characters serve their purpose, provoking a mix of laughter and suspense.

What is striking is that the earlier visual expression of the budding romance conveyed through a visual style or language, feels new to the sub-genre. It channels a modern expression of silent film, that merges painting, photography and cinema, an aesthetic rarely championed in this type of genre storytelling. Here is a filmmaker that conveys his appreciation for expressing feeling in cinema through image and sound, not exclusively dialogue or text, showing glimpses of an artistic flourish in which film as art leaps above film as an exclusive narrative form.

One wishes the filmmaker had continued to flip the script, but even before the genre reasserts itself and the apocalyptic mêlée begins, we find ourselves questioning what the film is and what it wants to be. It is difficult to push back against a sub-genre with such a firm, even self-conscious identity, and so, the director is right to say that it’s a, “slightly unfamiliar and odd zombie film.” Yet it’s also a product of our contemporary world because amidst the current pandemic crisis, Min-Jae’s film has an allegorical presence of mind. In another time it may have been more escapist, but in this current time the film resonates disturbingly because when one looks to the U.S, an ally of South Korea, the film can be seen as a satirical piece of storytelling – the priority of capitalist and economic needs over containing a potential contagion. Zombie for Sale is a reflection of present day anxiety, a snapshot preserved for posterity.

Zombie for Sale is out now on Blu-ray and is streaming on the Arrow Video channel.

Stage Mother

Posted on by victorfraga

The premise of Stage Mother must have been an easy sell – Texan church choir leader Maybelline (Jacki Weaver) travels to San Francisco for the funeral of her son Ricky, a gay drag queen from whom she was estranged for a decade. Once there, she learns she has inherited his drag club, a run down establishment with acts that are no longer bringing in the crowds. Filled with remorse for her treatment of Ricky, she resolves to get the club back on its feet with a new act inspired by her own performance experience (“different songs, same divas – and some of the same wigs”).

Maybelline would be the type of role Dolly Parton might have played years ago, Weaver’s soft accent even sounds like the country legend. With big wide eyes and catchy comebacks (“get your ass outta here before I put another hole in it”), it’s easy to get on her side even though she is introduced as the worst kind of neglectful parent.

She stands as a kind of middle ground between two heightened extremes – the conservative straights (embodied by her scowling husband who stayed in Texas), and the cackling queens. Anyone looking for innovative LGBTQ+ representation will be in for a disappointment as the gang Maybelline falls in with are very much Hollywood’s idea of what the community is. While the straight characters all have love interests at some point (Weaver has her head turned by a suave hotel concierge), gay and trans characters are there to be tragedies that Maybelline can piece back together, solving drug addiction and domestic abuse with some homespun wisdom.

It’s never clear why a character so open-minded could have possibly treated her offspring so badly. We see nothing of the dark side of that relationship, only the repentance. Then again, it’s that kind of movie, where the worst kind of problems get treated with a cry and a sing-a-long. It’s an idealised world that wraps you up in easy solutions, and good humour. The film becomes a comforting let’s-put-on-a-show dramedy, where everyone pitches in to turn the club’s fortunes around, and learns a little something on the way.

Weaver enjoys a sharp back-and-forth with Adrien Grenier as her son’s partner, the only character who really holds her to account for anything. Eventually that tension thaws, but not before it gives us some delicious one liners (when Grenier accuses her of storming out of the funeral, Weaver snaps back “I don’t storm, I flounce”). Lucy Liu is great fun as Ricky’s best friend, a sassy single mother who is the first to welcome Maybelline into their world. Fans of the film Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015) will be happy to see Mya Taylor as one of the club’s performers. While the role may be slight, she adds some heart to her scenes.

Stage Mother is in cinemas on Friday, July 24th. On VoD on Monday, November 16th. On Netflix on Monday, December 7th.

Litigante

Posted on by victorfraga

One opportunity thrown up by the absence of summer blockbusters is the chance to experience a different kind of cinema. Colombian drama Litigante moves at a speed that may be a little too luxurious for those used to a diet of Jedis and Avengers, but the themes will resonate regardless of your background. It will also be refreshing to those in search of stories told from a realistic female perspective.

The film stars Carolina Sanín as Silvia, a public sector lawyer caring for her mother Leticia (Leticia Gómez), who is dying of lung cancer. Silvia works hard to balance this tough moment in her life with a crisis at work, and her responsibilities as a single mother to her son Antonio. What becomes apparent as the story goes on is how human it all feels. Very little is played for dramatic effect, as director Franco Lolli seeks truth and humanity from every scene. Conversations are held cordially, with voices raising only slightly during the film’s most emotional moments. The cast are not buried in make up or flattering lighting. Everything feels natural.

The scenery is left unchewed as arguments are hushed so as to not be hear by younger ears, while the trauma of Leticia treatment plays out without any soundtrack other than the beeps and whirrs of medical equipment. The core female cast take their journey together with little fuss, bickering all the way but leaving you in no doubt as to the strength of their love for each other. A scene featuring a deeply personal argument between Silvia and Leticia is immediately followed by Silvia helping her from a fall. The paradoxical nature of family, where you fight tooth and nail for people who criticise your every decision, is portrayed exquisitely by the excellent stars.

Silvia’s interactions with the men in her life is equally nuanced, avoiding broad heroes and villains. Silvia begins the films arguing with a talk radio host, who later becomes her boyfriend, with the arc of their relationship feeling relatable. When meeting with the father of her child, the conversation is respectful, if a little strained. Nobody storms off, and no one is portrayed without flaws.

Sanín is excellent as a woman caught in the eye of a professional and personal storm. Wonderfully restrained, she powers her way through patronising meetings with her boss, while coming home and making sure her son is well cared for. In some scenes she is treated harshly, in others she is accused of judging all others to too high a standard. She is neither victim nor aggressor, a balance that gives her a depth rarely seen in modern cinema. While she is a supporting character, Gómez fills the screen as Leticia. A successful woman railing against her diagnosis, it’s a modest but harrowing portrayal of illness and how fear can bring out the worst in some.

Litigante is on VoD on Friday, July 10th. On various VoD platforms in January (2021).

Cold head, warm heart!!!

Posted on by Paul Risker

A remote Icelandic town is the setting for an obsessive search for the truth, when off-duty police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurðsson), begins to suspect a local man of having had an affair with his late wife.

A White, White Day (Hvítur, hvítur dagur) is the second feature from director Hlynur Palmason, and features shades of his 2017 feature debut Winter Brothers (Vinterbrødre). The ratcheting up of tension as Ingimundur becomes increasingly obsessive, ultimately placing his granddaughter in harms way by confronting his wife’s lover, mirrors the escalating tensions between two families in his earlier work, while the cold environment also serves to connect the two films.

In conversation with DMovies, the filmmaker discussed his desire to blend past, present and future, working with a cold head and warm heart, and finding humanity in ambiguous cinema.

Paul Risker – Why film as a means of creative expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment for you personally?

Hlynur Palmason – It’s a bit mysterious because I’m like a lot of children who just became interested in the film medium by watching films. I grew up with a very westernised cinema, Hollywood films, and I come from a working class family. We never went to museums or such, but I remember seeing films that were different, and I remember finding it very interesting how it felt different and personal – how it connected with me very strongly. I’ve always been extremely obsessed with images and sound, and putting them together to create an experience. So from an early age I began working both in photography and in painting and drawing, then with the film medium.

PR – Has the filmmaking experience influenced your appreciation of film, and changed the way you watch films?

HP – It can change a lot because when you adore or spend all your time on something, you become very passionate, you speak your mind, and you have very strong opinions. This happens naturally, and I remember reading the diary by the French painter Eugène Delacroix. He was out seeing a concert with a very well known pianist, and in the first ten seconds he could easily tell if he was going to like it, because there’s a temperament and there’s a personality in each tone, and it’s the same with film.

When I watch a film, I immediately know if this is something interesting or something I find mediocre. It’s a strong word, but I absolutely find that this changes with time – you become more interested in things that are maybe a little more difficult, or a little more open. When I watch or experience a film, I need to be respected – the film needs to be a little open, and there has to be space for me to enter and have my own thoughts. I don’t want someone to dictate what it is exactly that I am supposed to feel – I have to put my own self into it.

PR – What was the genesis of A White, White Day?

HP – I was always inspired by the studio or the interior life, like with artists, and of each stage diving deeper into the process. I always wanted that for myself and felt that was the right path. The day starts for me with taking the children to school and then working all day, which is basically diving deeper into what you’re interested in, and I tend to use everything around me.

My films and my process are very much a blend of the past: where I come from, my roots, then the present: what I’m fascinated about right now, my temperament, and how I see and hear things, and also the future: those things I fear and desire, what I’m exploring, and the dreams. I like it when my films become these three things blended together, and that’s personal cinema, and that’s what I’ve always wanted.

With A White, White Day especially, there was this beating heart of the film that I was interested in, of these two kinds of love: the unconditional love towards a child or a grandchild which is simple, or a more complex love towards a lover, which is something completely different. I wanted to explore these two things, but it didn’t work until I found the world to put it in – this white world. You have all of these things going on and sometimes it feels like they are all pointing in the same direction, and you’re filtering out the things that fit and don’t fit, and it’s so strange.

PR – The opening quote infers a possible supernatural element to the drama, but these expectations are subverted. Would you agree that the film is balancing itself between different types of stories?

HP – It’s always this fine balance. It’s almost like a piece of music: there is a little bit of warmth and then it becomes a little bit cold, then it goes up and then down a little bit, and then it goes over there, but not too much. It’s always this balance I am working with, and the quote is also a big part of that balance.

How do people categorise the film? Do they say it’s a mystery? Do they say it’s a drama? They have all of these titles that I don’t even understand and I know very little of genres to be honest, so it’s always interesting when people are trying to find a shelf to put it on. I like it when the film is more fluid, moving around and not settling on anything.

PR – In this drama, the past remains a haunting present as a secret is revealed, the story mirroring your reference to diving deeper into what interests you. Is there a intuitive dimension to your process?

HP – I love this blend of past, present and future coming together at the same, and when it works, it lifts the experience. I’ve always tried to somehow make that work. I love how things can sometimes surprise you when you see objects and you film them, and you don’t know why, but you have a certain feeling that they do connect to a certain thing. I just try to keep my head cold and my heart warm, and to go intuitively with what feels right, by following the things I want to do and experience, instead of thinking about scenes that explain so the audience understands something. I’ve never really spent my time on those kinds of things because it has to be from the want and desire to make it. Those individuals that have experienced the film will feel the same energy as the filmmaker who is making it, and it’s very important, especially with films like this that people feel that they’re being very honest and truthful, and they’re trying to open up a dialogue and be expressive. All of these things are very important if you’re making cinema, and you’re probably doing it because you want some kind of dialogue and you want to be part of something, because I think everybody does.

PR – As much as you say you want the audience to have a dialogue with you, are you also entering a dialogue with yourself?

HP – I try to experience the film through me. Unlike many films that are preconceived concepts, almost like a product for people, that have gone through many test screenings where people will tell them if something isn’t clear, or they don’t feel enough for a character, we definitely don’t do that. We use ourselves, and I’m talking about the crew – we take it in and feel it, and whether it feels right and we think it’s ready is very much a gut feeling.

My editor and I are sitting together for eight months and we never talk about plot or anything like that. We talk about the breath of the film, the way it moves and the tempo. It’s like a composition, much more like a rhythm.

There are some films that you want to see again because there’s more meat on the bones, there’s more things to explore because there are a lot of questions. I don’t know if it’s a crazy thing to say, but I feel that the films that have an ambiguity or seem to have another level, they have so much humanity in them, and I think that’s probably what I’m aiming for. Every time I start working on a project, all of these plot driven points or the story just naturally disappear because I’m not really interested in them. I tend to just go after what I’m fascinated by: the faces, the movement of the people, how they talk and what they talk about, and how the landscape around them shapes them. And suddenly I’m just focusing on these things because we don’t really have plots in our lives – things just happen.

A White, White Day is streaming on Curzon Home Cinema, Peccadillo Player and the BFI Player from Friday, July 3rd.

The image at the top is of Hlynur Palmason; the image in the middle is a still from ‘A White, White Day’.

A White, White Day (Hvítur, Hvítur Dagur)

Posted on by Paul Risker

A remote Icelandic town is the setting for an obsessive search for the truth, when off-duty police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurðsson), begins to suspect a local man of having had an affair with his late wife.

From the premise alone, the Nordic Noir phenomenon that held the UK in its grip will create expectations of what Hlynur Parmason’s A White, White Day (Hvítur, hvítur dagur), will be. An image is perhaps painted in our mind of the archetypal troubled detective, anxious as he solves whatever the puzzle is that has been laid before him. Ingimundur is this familiar character, but those calm moments of the detective quietly lost in thought, unravelling something bigger than himself is absent here. This is a personal journey into his past that is being rewritten, that injures him anew.

There are parallels between Ingimundur and Sigurðsson’s earlier detective in Baltasar Kormákur’s 2006 film, Jar City (Mŷrin). A father to a troubled daughter, with his tall frame he evoked an intimidating presence, punctuated by moments of intense anger. This was juxtaposed with a gentle and compassionate paternal side to his persona that created a layered character. Once again the actor echoes that same delicate balance, although this time the anger of a spouse with a simmering irritation, who is deeply hurt and angry, but juxtaposed with a gentle and kind love towards his granddaughter, a joy he and his late wife shared. Sigurðsson’s commanding performance alongside the genuine bond between Ingimundur and his granddaughter, Salka (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir), does not create an emotional connection, which down plays their interpersonal dynamic, but gives us something more effective – a humanity that touches us more profoundly.

With unsettling music in the background, the film opens with a quote from an unknown source: “On such days when everything is white, and there is no longer any difference between the earth and the sky, then the dead can talk to us who still are living.”

If the text conjures up expectation of a crime story with supernatural or horror elements, Parmason sets a course to subvert these. We inherently take the idea of the communication between the living and the dead literally, which is a mistake here. What is the filmmakers intent by using the quote? The words could be metaphorical – the loss of perspective, of confusion, and how a revelation can clutter the mind – what was once clear foggier now. Also, the memory of a life shared and the possessions of the deceased that betray their secrets are a bridge between the dead and those still living, although it’s a one way communication. In Parmason’s film, the death of the wife is not only a past event, but the discovery of her indiscretion, and its implications on how he now sees their relationship merges the past with the present and the future. By subverting the expectations of the opening quote the director playfully tells us that not everything is as it seems. It’s a simple but effective touch at connecting audience and Ingimundur, for who the story is one of uncertainty.

The mistake is to take A White, White Day literally, and genre and pigeon-holing should be set aside. It’s not a crime nor a detective film, but a story that on some level is philosophically inclined. The concluding scenes culminates with an ambiguous question of the legitimacy of what we’re seeing. But this misses the point, because even if it’s a projection of Ingimundur’s memory, of past and present merging, or it’s an act of imagining, Parmason could be asking whether death is not the end, but is a continuation? It can of course be viewed more simply as Ingimundur journeying through his trauma, finding a resolution and nestling in the love he experienced with his wife. Nothing about this film is concrete, it’s flexible storytelling that emerges out of genre, but belongs to none, and its uncertain themes and ideas emerge out of incidents that are ironically a response to a concrete revelation.

A White, White Day is streaming on Curzon Home Cinema, Peccadillo Player and the BFI Player from Frida, July 3rd.

Lynn + Lucy

Posted on by victorfraga

Friendships involve celebrating the good times and weathering through the bad times. The friendship of the two titular character is cold and strained with devastating results. Lucy (Nichola Burley), a new mother to a baby boy with a ne’er-do-well husband (Samson Cox-Vinell), has some growing up to do; before the credits start to roll, she starts to get plastered at her son’s baptism celebration. Lynn (Roxanne Schrimshaw) is a mother to a pre-teen daughter in a fading marriage to a soldier on disability (Shaq B. Grant) who spends her days working at a local beauty salon. After a night away from motherhood at a local pub, both girls’ lives drastically change when a tragedy befalls on Lucy’s newborn baby.

As the melodrama unfolds, Lynn puts Lucy up at her house all the while speculating over Lucy’s validity as a stable mother. While at the hair salon, Lynn succumbs to the rumour mill spinning around the shop surrounding her friendship with Lucy echoing the catty tall-tales spun during her teenage years. As Lucy is treading emotional waters with alcohol and accusations made around the neighbourhood, Lynn is beginning to be accepted by the hair salon clique along with rekindling her strained relationship with her husband.

With his first feature film after being recognised for his Bafta-nominated shorts, Fyzal Boulifa presents a gritty, gut-punch story about friendship and loss echoing the same visual intensity as Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace (2010). What starts as a jovial, slice-of-life story in the same vein as Mike Leigh dives into a heart-wrenching and horrific tale of suspicion and loss. The images of burnt cigarettes in ashtrays exemplify the growing cynicism and division between Lynn and Lucy. When asked about developing the story, Boulifa says, “I was thinking about this idea that we find our identities by creating a kind of ‘other.’”

In the case of Lynn, she attempts to find some sense of optimism out of Lucy’s despair, which is where the film shifts into third gear as the turbulence and rockiness of Lynn and Lucy’s relationship is depicted with silent restraint and nail-biting intensity. Adding to this energy is cinematographer/editor Taina Galis’s. The camera eerily captures the shadows and light on Lynn’s face or the duplicitous nature of her connection with Lucy. In her acting debut, Roxanne Scrimshaw delivers a superb performance as the morally-conflicted Lynn as she balances out motherhood and recalling her adolescent-infused memories (myths?) about Lucy. Nichola Burley gives a devastating and heart-wrenching performance as a woman who mentally hasn’t left the schoolyard before becoming a mother.

This is not a movie for the faint of heart. Even at a 90-minute running time, the film is an emotional gauntlet that isn’t so much a nurturing tale about motherhood as it is a cautionary tale about the follies of youth leading to the faults of adulthood. The tasking and, at times, draining story reaches fever pitch with a barn burner of a twist ending.

Lynn + Lucy is out on BFI Player on Thursday, July 2nd.

Hamilton

Posted on by victorfraga

What makes a period piece about a little known American founding father, told largely through the medium of rap, become a hit the world over? After a raft of awards, and record-breaking box office, a 2016 performance by the original Broadway cast is making its way to streaming service Disney Plus, having originally been intended for cinemas.

Aside from a brief introduction, we are thrown head-first into Miranda’s vision – more or less the Broadway production with dynamic camera work to make the experience more immersive. He plays Alexander Hamilton, a young orphan immigrant who makes an immediate impact when he arrives in the US, on the cusp of revolution from the British. We watch his ascent to prominence as the right hand man of George Washington, the loves of his life, and the restlessness that ultimately leads to his downfall. We also see the cordial rivalry with Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.), a contemporary who takes a different political approach.

On paper, it sounds like a spoof concept from The Simpsons: a history of the United States set to rap. Conservative feathers were ruffled at the predominantly Black and Latin American cast. But to look at Hamilton on paper is to miss the point – the concept is far from being a gimmick, it is a living, heart-stopping masterpiece that uses culture of the present to tell stories from the past.

The musical isn’t necessarily telling a story about where the US came from, but of the motivations behind the people who made the country. It is about destiny, and the paths we take to meet it. Miranda darts around the stage as Hamilton, a man so possessed with his own destiny it pours out of him as he writes essays and argues in the street about the moulding of this new nation. By contrast, Odom’s Burr is driven by personal advancement and a policy of restraint (“talk less, smile more” he advises Hamilton in one early number). Romantically, destiny prevents Hamilton from being with his sister-in-law Angelica (Renée Elise Goldsberry).

Thr conflict between heart and fate is gripping. You may not care that much about military strategy, but you can empathise with Hamilton’s frustration at not being trusted with responsibility by Washington. You may not be fluent in the history of American government, but you can empathise with Burr, whose restraint crumbles as he realises his cautious approach leaves him always trailing behind his rival.

The music drives home the emotion of the piece. The choice of hip-hop conveys the revolutionary aspect of the times Hamilton lived in, imbuing scenes with a restlessness and excitement while other genres serve a different purpose. A debate becomes a rap battle, while an out of touch Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) arrives in the US to a boogie woogie number. Hysterically, Jonathan Groff’s King George III sings cheesy ballads to his lost colony like a scorned lover.

Watching the original Broadway cast, you see why so many have been snapped up by Hollywood. Anthony Ramos (from Bradley Cooper’s 2018 A Star Is Born) is magnetic as both Hamilton’s contemporary John Laurens and his son Phillip. Christopher Jackson creates a conflicted military hero in Washington. Miranda plays Alexander as a tangled ball of emotions, often singing through tears or gritted teeth. He eschews the bravado you’d expect from such a character for something more honest. He’s a true believer, driven forward not by ego but because he is being pulled by something greater.

Hamilton is available on Disney Plus from Friday, July 3rd.

You Don’t Nomi

Posted on by victorfraga

The $45 million film about Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley), a drifter-turned-stripper who dances her way to the top as Las Vegas’s premiere showgirls, was universally panned upon its release. With a plotline shamelessly ripped from All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) and a low-brow screenplay cementing the unfavourable reputation of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, critics and audiences were not swayed. Twenty-five years on, the film has gained a cult following through the midnight movie crowd and spawned a musical as Camp as Verhoeven’s eye on the depraved decadence of Las Vegas.

McHale and other diehard Showgirls fans dissect and analyse the film justifying how it was not given the merit it should have received back in 1995. Additionally, McHale doesn’t hold back at wagging the finger at films that were once critically-acclaimed but have since become regarded as Hollywood dreck as images from Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) and American Beauty (Sam Menes 1999) pop up on the screen. Through repeated images of the film and voice-over, Showgirls scholars give their two cents on how the film is an indictment on Hollywood’s treatment over women and also a sequin-shining example of the complete oeuvre of Paul Verhoeven.

From the obsession of fingernails, eating potato chips, and projectile vomiting, images from Verhoeven’s films (1992’s Basic Instinct, 2006’s Black Book and 2017’s Elle) pop up while Showgirls is analysed right down to the last tassel. The documentary also focuses on the movie’s leading lady, Elizabeth Berkley. Her wholesome-TV image on the Gen-X after-school sitcom, Saved By the Bell, was dragged through the coals when she became Nomi Malone. Although not interviewed for the film, footage of Berkley after Showgirls shows the actress with no qualms over her risky and risqué performance.

Additionally, there is a moving segment following April Kidwell, a San Francisco-based actress who talks about the cathartic elements of playing Nomi in the Showgirls musical and why the film resonates with her. For those that love Showgirls, You Don’t Nomi is a perfect validation over the Razzie-winning film. For those who weren’t as enthusiastic about Showgirls upon its release, the documentary is a Camp, yet vivid dissertation over the film and how its highly-publicised, x-rated content is nearly as disturbing as Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976). The hypersexual imagery overshadows the debased nature of Hollywood depicted in the film, yet we are as complicit in the depravity by watching it. Regardless of your views over Showgirls, You Don’t Nomi is an entertaining and fascinating look at a Hollywood bomb and its status as a cult classic.

You Don’t Nomi is on Mubi on Saturday, April 16th; also available on other platforms