THE SECOND IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

  Well here we are again remembering more forgotten films and today’s choice is a slightly unusual one as I’m sure it’s on that everyone will have heard of but I imagine a few people reading will not have seen.  It’s from the eighties. the decade that cinema largely forgot, with abysmal styles, terrible music (well definitely in the latter half) and AIDS, the disease that made everyone scared of sex (Just what you want when you’re a horny teenager, thank you, Universe!)  But within that decade there still managed to be some cracking films made, but, many of them have been forgotten and now occupy bargain bins in supermarkets everywhere for only £2.  The film I am looking at today is one of those films, made in 1989 it is an intimate portrayal of the breakdown of a relationship and the commencement of another one, or two in a way.  It is a masterful debut film by a 26 year old who would eventually become an oscar-winner for a remake of a television series, and it’s main star would sadly never really reach the heights he showed with this incredible performance.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sex, Lies and Videotape.

SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE (1989)

  So, imagine if you will, me and some friends trying to choose a film at the local video store as our dismal social lives led us once again to this predictable place.  On this night the general consensus among my friends was “Oh yeah, let’s get this one, YEAH!”  Now, although it’s hard to believe and to be honest I still don’t have any idea why, I didn’t want to see Sex, Lies and Videotape as a watch.  I don’t want to make out I was Mr Puritanical when it came to choosing a film because I wasn’t, but I just didn’t fancy it.  So we took it back, watched it, they hated it, I loved it.  I still love it, because like Tarantino years later, Soderbergh realised that sometimes it’s worth pursuing the exploitation angle to get bums on seats, even if your film isn’t anything like what it says on the tin.

  If you haven’t seen the film then the story is quite simple to relate.  It is the story of four people in a little American suburban town.  Annie is married to John but is sexually repressed, Cynthia, Anne’s sister, is anything but repressed and is sleeping with John, who is a scumbag lawyer.  Into these three people’s lives walks Graham, played amazingly by James Spader, a man who is independently wealthy (although we never find out how ...Heathcliff anybody?) and who is in town to seek some sort of relationship or sense of closure with a woman he used to know whom he pushed away and hurt.  And that’s it.  No really, that is it, that’s all there is to it.  There’s no gunfights, explosions, dramatic cross edits, playing around with the timeline or anything fancy like that.  It’s just a bloody good film that covers a whole range of issues, from betrayal, lies (both John’s and Anne’s) emotional stuntedness, repression, attention seeking and unfulfilled longing and the value of absolute truth.  There’s no nudity in the film (well female nudity anyway) there’s no drug use and it probably doesn’t deserve it’s 18 rating.  The performances are fantastic, with Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo all embodying their roles as Anne, John and Cynthia respectively with distinction but it is James Spader as the quietly disastrous Graham who is mesmerizing in this, I want to say Kitchen sink, but it’s more like, dining table drama.  The dialogue is notable in it’s ordinariness, again something that Tarantino certainly picked up on, and the direction always feels like we’re catching everyone out.  The music isn’t really music and is more like a collection of sounds thrown together to go with a scene but it all works superbly, although as it comes to an end you’re not really sure why.

In short Sex, Lies and Videotape is a film like no other that holds a power long after the final credits have gone.  Unfortunately though as the trailer is trash I have instead got these two early scenes which hopefully will convey some of the mood of the film.  E la.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdFjxhDOKNQ&playnext=1&list=PLE85090625FE79C83
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djEBjPu0CQE&feature=related