The Monkey's Mask

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Movie
German title The Monkey's Mask
Original title The Monkey's Mask
Country of production Australia , Canada , France , Italy , Japan
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 89 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Samantha Lang
script Anne Kennedy
production Robert Connolly ,
John Maynard
music Jacqui Hunt ,
Kathleen Power ,
Pete Rivett-Carnac
camera Garry Phillips
cut Dany Cooper
occupation

The Monkey's Mask (alternative spelling the monkey's mask , reference title Die Affenmaske ) is an Australian-Canadian-French-Italian-Japanese coproduction by Samantha Lang from 2000 . The plot of the thriller is based on a novel by Dorothy Porter . Starring alongside Kelly McGillis and Susie Porter , Marton Csokas and Abbie Cornish . In Germany, the film, which was broadcast on television as part of the "Summer Night Phantasies" series, advertised with the statement: "A vortex of passion, intrigue and sexual greed."

action

In Sydney, 19-year-old literature student Mickey Norris appears in a café during a reading. The young woman firmly believes that she will have a career as a poet. After Mickey says goodbye to her friends, she drives away in her car and does not appear again.

Jill Fitzpatrick, a former police officer who now works as a private investigator, has retired from the big city and now lives in a remote house outside of Sydney. However, she has to admit that she already misses some of the amenities of the big city, including sexual adventures that are hard to find in her new environment. When Mickey's parents contact her, since contact with their daughter has been lost for two weeks now, and ask for support, she accepts the case.

First research leads her to the professor Diana Maitland, who taught Mickey at the university and is a recognized poetry expert. An erotic tension immediately arises between the two women. Fitzpatrick knows that Maitland immediately recognized her lesbian orientation. The detective then visits Mickey's best friend Tianna, which also gives her access to the shared apartment of which Mickey was a member. In doing so, she gets a suspicion that Mickey has probably led a double life and kept it a secret from her parents, as it would have contradicted their picture of their daughter.

Little by little, Fitzpatrick realizes that the missing student only had what it takes to be a poet in her imagination; her poetry turns out to be pathetic late adolescent. Apparently she dealt with unhappy affairs with poets who were recognized by society. Then Mickey's body is found. The young woman has been strangled. Fitzpatrick wonders who Mickey might have been targeting sexually suggestive poems. Is there a connection between Mickey and her two favorite poets? And above all, who leaves threatening messages in verse on the student's answering machine. Fitzpatrick also manages to track down two of the men who were an idol for Mickexy and possibly also their lovers. On the one hand there is a guy with a foreign accent who seems very determined and on the other hand a religious fanatic who hurls the sentence "The devil quotes the scriptures for his own goals, you lesbian filth" at the detective.

In the meantime, Jill Fitzpatrick has entered into a sexual relationship with Diana Maitland and moves around a lot in her environment and gets to know a literary-psychosexual underworld, where things get hot and things happen that you don't in a world in which mainly academics live thinks possible. It is there that she also comes across that Mickey Norris died during a sexual strangulation that got out of hand.

production

Production notes

The novel, written in verse by Dorothy Lang, had to be translated accordingly by Anne Kennedy and translated into pictures by the director Samantha Lang.

Soundtrack

publication

The film had its world premiere on September 13, 2000 at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada. In Germany it was first presented on November 15, 2000 at the Enchanted Film Festival.

It was screened at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on March 28, 2001, and was shown in cinemas in London two days later. The film was first seen in Australia on May 10, 2001, in Italy on June 1, 2001 under the title La maschera di scimmia , in Japan (Tokyo) under the titles Poetry, Sex and ポ エ ト リ ー, セ ッ ク ス on June 23, 2001 and in the USA in a limited edition for the first time on July 27, 2001. In France, it found its way into the cinemas on August 15, 2001 under the title Cercle intime . On September 11, 2001, the film was presented at the Film by the Sea Film Festival in the Netherlands. In Spain it was published on June 7, 2002. On November 29, 2003, he was one of the entries at the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. It was first seen on TV in Sweden on January 31, 2006 and in Hungary on March 30, 2007.

The film was also released in Brazil, Poland and Russia. On May 2, 2006, Koch Media GmbH released the film with a German soundtrack on DVD.

reception

Film studies canon

Monkey's Mask has already found its way into the canon of film studies (with Samantha Lang's earlier film The Well ) and was analyzed by Ursula Raberger, among others, with regard to the openly shown female homosexuality.

criticism

Erin Free wrote in July 2001 in The Hollywood Reporter magazine that the combination of the elements of lesbian love, poetry and violence could secure cult status for the film. The presence of Kelly McGillis could lure the audience, but the style and the originality of the film could also bind the audience to the thriller (“The presence of Kelly McGillis might be the hook that brings in the audience, but the film's style and originality will be what keeps it there "). The representations of Susie Porter and Kelly McGillis are "solid as a rock" ("rock-solid").

In August 2001, Bob Graham wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that Kelly McGillis brought a "combination of fire and ice" into the film. The audience would remember the “sex-charged atmosphere” and the display of poetry.

On the Film Noir side it was stated: “On such terrain of a film noir story based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy Porter, the director Samantha Lang provides us with far more than just a togetherness spiced with erotic scenes of lesbian love or a crime in academic circles . The monkey mask is convincing stylistically with exquisite locations, wonderful actors, a coherent dramaturgy and the atmospheric staging of its leading actress Susie Porter. ”The sum of the qualities that the film has, however, does not“ make a good film ”. The “catch with the story” is that “it is hardly original and not really exciting”. Then flicker the credits across the screen, hang “that unsatisfactory 'How? Is that supposed to be it? ' in the air after the story has gradually exhausted its potential ”. Final sentence: "The monkey mask is certainly not a must as a Neo Noir from Australia."

Cinema wrote: “Director Samantha Lang translates Dorothy Porter's cult novel, written in verse [...] into light-flooded, but ice-cold images and underlines the whole thing with a driving soundtrack. Anyone who knows the template of the provocative crime thriller will miss its refreshing humor. "Conclusion:" Something for the brave: courageous crime thriller. "

On the BBC Home Movies page , Michael Thomson rated the film and said director Lang opted for a naturalistic (rather than poetic) dialogue and sexual hints about the story of a poetry student being strangled. The result is a film that temporarily moves forward and then comes to a standstill again. But for those who only knew Kelly McGillis from the thriller Witness or the action film Top Gun , it might be a welcome change to see her play icy, manipulative and hard.

In the New York Times , AO Scott took on the film, saying that the detective's passionate association with the charismatic professor tarnished her judgment and distracted her from her mission, and that her hard-breathing sex scenes distracted audiences from surprisingly poor dialogue. For example this: 'I never knew that poetry is about opening your legs one minute and the grave the next.' Scott agreed that there were already two. The film's vision of poetry as a sleazy, glamorous persecution that could well exist in Australia has something charming, the critic said. But Samantha Lang's flat, leisurely direction and Annie Kennedy's painful, explanatory script made such an imagination seem absurd. Instead of tension, there is confusion; instead of intrigue, there are many inexplicable confrontations between the characters, the meaning of which is less mysterious than obscure. The horror of The Monkey's Mask is particularly disappointing, as Lang has already proven talent with the creepy thriller The Well from 1997, which is set in the Australian outback.

On Urban Cinefile - The World of Film in Australia , Louise Keller believed that Porter slipped into the confident, leather-clad butch role with ease and sharpness, while McGilli's seductive sly beauty was an elegant emotional whirlwind. Marton Csokas, who plays Nick, the professor's husband, has to be liked and Deborah Mailman also plays herself in our hearts in a little cameo. In many ways this is a story of opposites and duality; the city and the country; Love and hate; big and small, light and dark; Life and death; Reality and fantasy. The script is strong and the feelings expressed often hit a nerve, and the ironic humor also keeps us on our toes. It's an intoxicating mix, and although the lesbian sex scenes lack the passion of a movie like Aimée & Jaguar , they are both physically and emotionally explicit. The Monkey's Mask is original and explodes with its unique flavors. It is a powerful and fun journey that dares to venture into areas beyond the comfort zone.

The Monkey's Mask defies the rules of storytelling and cinema alike through its two-strand, genre-amalgamating content, which is told in dynamic passages that would reflect the source material - a novel in verse - and does not compromise on retail. It is an edgy and engaging film that is not that easy to describe and is not easy to digest for the mainstream audience.

Awards

  • In 2000 Samantha Lang received the
    Audience Award in the category "Best Feature Film" at the Rencontres Internationales du Cinema des Antipodes .
  • At the 2001 Dallas Out Takes, Susie Porter was named Best Actress.
  • At the Australian Screen Sound Guilds 2001, Anne Breslin, Ben Osmo , Phil Heywood, Gerry Nucifora, Emma Barham, David Lee , Don Connolly, Andy Duncan, John Penders, Linda Murdoch, Yulia Akerholt, Matt Wall-Smith, Rick Lisle, Julie Pearce, Tony Young, Mauricio Hernández, John Dennison, Duncan McAllister and Rory McGregor received the ASSG Award in the category "Soundtrack of the Year".
  • In the same year, the soundtrack was
    nominated for the ARIA Music Award in the “Best Original Soundtrack Album” category.
  • Screenwriter Anne Kennedy was nominated for the Australian Film Institute Award (AFI Award) in 2001.
  • At the 2002 Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards, Susie Porter was nominated for the FCCA Award for Best Actress and Anne Kennedy was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Monkey's Mask . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2005 (PDF; test number: 87 054 DVD).
  2. ↑ a b the monkey's mask see illustration DVD case.
  3. ↑ Premiere dates for "The Monkey's Mask" in the IMDb. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  4. ↑ Raberger, Ursula: New Queer Oz: Feminist Film Theory and Female Homosexuality in Two Films by Samantha Lang. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2009, 128 pages (German), ISBN 3-639-22278-4 .
  5. ↑ Erin Free: The Monkey's Mask In: The Hollywood Reporter , July 19, 2001. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  6. ↑ Bob Graham: The Monkey's Mask In: San Francisco Chronicle , August 24, 2001. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  7. ↑ The monkey mask see page der-film-noir.de. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  8. ↑ Die Affenmaske - Australian erotic thriller with Kelly McGillis see page cinema.de. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  9. ↑ Michael Thomson: The Monkey's Mask see page bbc.co.uk (English). Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  10. ^ AO Scott: Film in Review The Monkey's Mask In: The New York Times , July 27, 2001 (English). Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  11. ↑ a b Louise Porter, Andrew L. Urban: The Monkey's Mask see page urbancinefile.com.au (English). Retrieved March 8, 2020.