You’ve heard it: most disturbing, brutal, most walked out, most hated, most feted of 2002, et cetera et cetera, almost banned in Australia (but was aired sometime ago anyway in WorldMovies, where I taped it from). “Memento”-style (oh it’s a style on its own?), as in the plot moving backwards (with the credits at its very beginning). We know it’s an “arthouse”, spinning camera, strobe effect, the notorious 9-minute non-stop static rape scene, the gay S&M club, “The Rectum”.Is it worth watching? The rape scene wasn’t as violent as I was bracing myself for (having been troweling through accounts of war crimes that are my bedtime stories, not because I craved for (Lord forbids) a more preposterous shot). Since when does a 9-minute rape scene become the new art form? Ugh. The kind of “extreme”, “arthouse” film, shocking only to the completely uninitiated, but with a noticeably lack of quotable dialogues that most “extreme films” are so rife with. (”Le temps detruit tout?” Cliché. “There is no bad or good deeds, only deeds?” Oh darling, but Wilde’s done it—a century earlier.)
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