Representing Canada: Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia (1977)

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Dir. Jean LaFleur

There are many things I praise the BBFC, British Board of Film Classification, for since 2000, when they became more lenient on the films acceptable to see in British for the better, but there are a lot of things about them that anger me. An entire social cosmos of modern British attitudes can be gauged in what they censor as well as pass, including the contradictions. With one exception that was released on DVD over here, SS Experiment Camp (1976),  the Naziploitation subgenre has never been acceptable in its mixing of sex, torture and swastikas. Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975), a Canadian film that started the subgenre proper, will probably not be released in Britain still, rejected back when it was first released. Sexual violence is one of the last remaining taboos left that, understandably despite my anti-censorship beliefs, will not die, and a film which has potentially trangressive S&M scenarios, baring a few that have been released, will probably have a tough time being passed uncut or at all still. In the outside world, that Canadian film managed to spawn Italian rip-offs, many put on the Video Nasties list, and the film itself spawned sequels that went away from the Nazis. One of them, Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia, has been shown on British television uncut in October 2013. The hypocrisy that is latent in this is clear. A film that trivialises the Stalinist gulags, where real people died on mass, for seeing Dyanne Thorne naked and gore, is allowed to be shown on our TV yet Naziploitation is still taboo because it has more historical meaning for the country is questionable even if I'm glad the film was actually broadcasted. I am baring in mind that it hasn't got a lot of really objectionable material that would trouble the BBFC, but the issue is there. If suddenly Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS was passed or another Naziploitation film was released, I would not say this, but until then this point sticks out. As for the film itself...

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The first half is set in a Serbia gulag, where dissidents are brainwashed for the Stalinist cause by Ilsa (Thorne) and her minions/sex partners. One man stands out as being unbreakable, which she wants to reverse. Made with a ragged tone, set in almost desolate locations using Canadian snowy wilderness, it's still pretty raw even by today's standards despite being ridiculous. A lot of this is because, for all the freedom is cinema in terms of violence and sex now, this feels more blatant and lurid about it. The sex, where Thorne (and almost all the female cast) are naked at some point, and her character is insatiable for human comfort, feels like porn has directly influenced it even if nothing is seen. One scene with Ilsa and two of her minions, frankly, becomes double penetration, which causes me to wonder what erotica and pornography at this period of the seventies was like, as the film in these sex scenes and anytime an actress disrobes suddenly has a sheen of softcore. You suddenly expect there to be Vaseline on the camera despite the fact the same raggy look is still there in them. The other content, Ilsa's various methods of torture and brutality, are just as exaggerated. The gore is not that extreme, baring one exception, but the actual material is surprising. The tigress as a pet tiger, as you do, to feed prisoners to. The brain washing is through electric shock punishment, not that different from what the evil communists did to Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). Throughout the film there's limb removal, spear impalement and general abuse of the body. And there is a scene with two chainsaws and arm wrestling that is still striking now, something you will never see in any other film to my knowledge. It's incredibly exploitative. But maybe its my distinctions between legitimately offensive material and these exploitation films distancing further, or I've given up with certain forms of political correctness after realising it has no content to the real world and real issues of human behaviour, but I admit this first half did engage me despite trivialising real historical content. The sexuality of the film is sensual, and titillating in a very vulgar but potent way. An older woman here, Thorne is attractive here while not becoming the kind of actress used in, say for example, most of Andy Sidaris' films whose there because she has large assets, if one is to be honest, and no charisma whatsoever. The tackiness and schlockyness of it all is actually a virtue. And in all its tactlessness in using communist purges, the film by itself is no less as offensive that actual sexual and fantasy scenarios which play with dominance, which if it's an issue for people has more to do with needing to probe the human mind that created the fantasies that criticising the actual scenarios. The only difference here is that there occasional gore from a horror movie spliced in-between it.

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The second half takes a drastic shift. A huge time and geographical change. It suddenly becomes a strange, strange film, close to Jess Franco but its own weird beast of erotic political thriller. The use of a computer that projects one's nightmares leads to surreal images, and the film at this point gets completely silly rather than tasteless. Someone dies by a waterbed in the least expected way possible. There's unexpected use of a spear on a modern piece of technology. And at this point the real issue with the film is clear. It's not that it weaves sexuality and violence in disconcerting ways. Many films do this that I have defended. Some are awful however because their lifeless, terrible filmmaking actually makes the content offensive because, stripped of any craft, it becomes clear these films are just an excuse to pander to this material in a lazy, presumed to be inherent way rather than something legitimately transgressive. Here, with Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia, the problem is just that its workman-like schlock. It's entertaining as it is, far from offensive in my mind, but there's no craft. Remove Thorne, and it's a generic film which sustains itself through an occasionally ridiculous moment and sex. Not through real craft, imagination or being truly gonzo and weird. It's strange, but not truly weird to be an interesting cult movie.

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Altogether this film is watchable. Merely tasteless entertainment because, barring the historical reference, there is nothing to be offended by even if it's still pretty surprising. It pushes itself close to the camp of films made by Jess Franco, rarely made now even in a period which has a great deal of artistic freedom, this fact counterbalanced by a hesitance to go this direction for political correctness or for the likelihood now of making it in a way that actually feels cheap rather than trangressive and potentially artistic. Unlike a good Franco film, its no way near as interesting. As distinct with a unique voice. It's no way near as bizarre as it could have been considering the direction it goes with computer generated nightmares and Soviet mercenary raids. The fact that it's a sequel probably doesn't help. Without seeing the original, I can still see that this is trying to continue spinning the wheels for a series with some desperation. Desperate use of nudity and sex. A Soviet theme that feels there to give the series one to follow from Nazis and Middle Eastern oil sheiks in the previous films. Violence and a tiger cage just because it could keep the viewers wanting more. It's a seventies exploitation film that is just entertaining, guilty pleasure or not, not quirky enough, not made with enough passion, not even ramshackle enough for me. I enjoyed it. Revealing in its luridness. But I can think of films better in these categories to rewatch over and over again.

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Mini-Review: Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009)

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Dirs. Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska

Very rarely does anyone become instantly good at their work the first attempt. Just because I'm writing about genre films here doesn't mean I've instantly become Kim Newman. Likewise, Dead Hooker In A Trunk should be seen as the first steps for the directors Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska, that shows how they managed to get a film created amongst themselves and with a small group in the film, and pushed them along to be potentially great in the future. As an actual film, its only worth viewing as a beginning attempt.

It's very unfocused. Four characters, the Geek (Jen Soska), the Junkie (Rikki Gagne), the Badass [sic] (Sylvia Soska), and the Goody Two Shoes (C.J. Wallis), a Christian volunteer and the sole male pulled into this situation, find themselves on a bloody odyssey when they find a literal hooker in the trunk of their car. There are plenty of surreal journeys taking place in films. Likewise, there are a lot of films made by young directors that are about the frivolous gore and tangents, Street Trash (1987) coming to mind. Unfortunately this film comes across like so many movies in which, no matter how it tries to be inventive, the content of the film and its practical gore effects are padded around a work that has no idea where it is going. It comes off as not really trying its hardest, almost abandoning the titular point of the thin story halfway through with a short, abrupt introduction of Chinese gangsters that go away immediately afterwards. Later plotting is just trying to plug holes up in a tone that has no real drive to it and is sinking quickly from the beginning. It attempts to bring the unexpected to the content, but comes off as messy without any effect. Only a few films can make this tone work, by utter accident or on purpose like with Frank Henelotter films, but that's because the tangents do have an immense effect on you or the entire narrative pulls on to keep you on your toes. This tries its best at its tasteless tone - never has limb loss been treated so matter-of-fact like it was a paper cut - but like the minor, tedious genre films which try a gonzo edge it feels like bad improvisation.

Visually, its unfortunately another low budget film shot on digital cameras which has to sacrifice its cinematic quality for cost. The shaking cameras through, always shaking even in dialogue sequences when they shouldn't, aren't as bad though as the mistakes in the editing, which botches a few key, sudden moments into practical effects to the point you briefly have no idea what is going for a second or two. Thankfully American Mary (2012) was the directors' film directly after this. It's far from perfect, and it's kind of startling how both films, from female directors, have a lot of violence against women especially in Dead Hooker In A Trunk, but it was a massive jump in quality. No abrasive use of loud rock or metal songs, potentially good if listened to separately but too high in the mix and not properly synchronised to the images and movements, a drastic shift up in the look of the film, and more importantly, really interesting ideas within the plot. In fact that film gives me hope the Soska Sisters will start to make some exceptionally good movies now they're jumped this high in quality already. I'm not going to give Dead Hooker In A Trunk a pass though, just because it's their debut, when its clearly lacking and more of a failed sketch of an idea they would improve on later on.

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Things (Dir. Andrew Jordan, 1989)

The follow film is an addition to my ‘Cinema of the Abstract’ project on the film website MUBI, collecting together films of all areas of cinema that personify an ‘abstract’ and unconventional mentality and mood to them. This is not for academic reasons or as work, but a hobby that will also benefit in improving myself ability to write for a public and centralise my personal tastes and views on this obsession of mine, avoiding the pretentions and lackadaisical attitudes that I feel have plague film writing, and in the case of how this project was started, make a lot of para-cinema and cult film writing incredibly conservative in mind and taste.  All films that have this piece at the top with have an ‘Abstract’ Rating and a personal score at the end. For more information on this peculiar scoring system, and what the ‘Cinema of the Abstract’ list is, follow this link – http://mubi.com/lists/cinema-of-the-abstract

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There must be a cautionary comment before this review starts that this will be a completely subjective rather than critical review. Up front, Things would be categorised as one of the worst films I have seen if viewed through the traditional quality scale of cinema. This review will however take a different turn that goes against this critical way of viewing films. I have drifted into a new direction with all the films I’ve seen since July 2012, but here this new mindset will go to its furthest length. If you want to see this film, it has to be viewed from different terms to find enjoyment and appreciation for it, particularly the view of these films that horror and cult film fans have (who may know of this film and be reading this review). Do not treat Things as cheap laugh or you will be incredibly baffled and hostile to it after the end credits.

Taking in what I could get from Things in terms of a plot, this Canadian straight-to-video piece of infamy starts with two men visiting the brother of one of them. What they realise however once they’re there is that the brother’s wife has been involved in an experimental fertility treatment that causes her to birth the titular ‘things’, giant ant-like creatures with piranha teeth that devour anyone in their sights. What you need to realise however is that this film not only has scant interaction with this plot but seems to be running away from its plot as far as possible  if it had been done on purpose. It would be avant-garde if it actually intended to alienate its viewers. The reality is that it wasn’t supposed to.

Made by two friends independently (director and co-writer Andrew Jordan and co-writer/star Barry J. Gillis) this is the cheapest looking and technically flawed film I have seen in a long time, most of its Super 8 filmed footage, because of the lack of sound with the material, silent until sound and dialogue was added in post-production. Viewed on an intentionally muddy DVD release to recreate its VHS origins (or maybe because the surviving source materials are videotape), many will be horrified (in the wrong way) by its lack of conventional production value, almost all set in a single house and almost completely lit in low-fi, bleeding red and blue lights that blur the images even more. The notorious reason why this obscure Canuxploitation film has gained a growing cult is its complete (and accidental) disregard for the concept of plotting, pace and the idea of film as a narrative story. The first half of the film consists of the three main characters talking about random topics and wandering around the house’s kitchen and living room – drinking beer, eating cockroach sandwiches, and noticing the once lost ‘Devil’s Daughter’  painting by Salvador Dali on a wall and a tape recorder in the fridge. And those last two aspects barely skim the odd moments which have nothing to do with the final narrative. The whole first half has little to do with the plot and may last between 30-40 minutes or most of the 85 minute film. When the ‘things’ do enter the fray the film descends further from its plotting, between moments of visceral gore and trauma dealt to the rubbery ant creatures, with scene of the characters looking around that can last many minutes, causing me to feel I was blending into the blood red lit walls. The 4^th, 5^th and 6^th dimension is even broken without it ever being referred back to.

Now, this sounds like a complete damnation of Things, but this is where my subjective and personal opinion comes in. If I had seen this when I was much younger, when I followed the concept of what ‘great’ cinema was through mainstream film magazines and canon lists, I would have despised this. What has happened now however is that, having taken a Film Studies course at college for A Levels and learn cinematic grammar, I have started to break down the ideas I have been given into my own opinions. To put it in a less pretentious way, it has made truly great films even greater but it has allowed me to cherish films like Things and even view them as artistically more creative and subversive in their failure than more better made movies. I was bored in parts of Things, continually dumbfounded by the directions it went, but never felt I had wasted 85 minutes of my life. In fact I am charmed by its ineptness and was never un-stimulated by it throughout the first viewing. Even the moments of boredom bring a smile on my face thinking back to it.

Yes it is a technical failure, but in not following the rules of how a film ‘should’ be made, it is a breath of fresh air to see after so many bland, ‘properly made’ ones. ‘Bad’ cinema can be far more interesting than merely being ‘guilty pleasures’ or ‘so-bad-they’re-good films’, but as legitimately abstract and creative in their mishaps and production hiccups. I have heard about the members of the original Surrealist Movement in the early 20^th century going to see bad films, not for cheap laughs, but because they saw their failings as undermining conventions and puncturing the realities of film to create dream-like effects, something that has become more potent for me just by viewing films for the interest of them. This is rare - most bad films are a waste of celluloid, usually for me examples of why sticking faithfully to clichés and bland story writing can make whole genres of cinema landfills despite their great films – but through one’s personal tastes and opinions we can all find movies which we are attached to  despite being viewed as terrible creations. This is not something that only exists for die hard film fans either, as when someone is attached to a film knowing it’s usually viewed in contempt but not only doesn’t sees it as a bad film, but finds enjoyment in it being a ‘bad’ film and being different from everything else. (For example, this is likely why Plan 9 From Outer Place (1959) is as loved as it is despite its reputation.) Legitimate avant-garde cinema is known for practicing what would be ‘terrible’ cinematic practices on purpose (like Jean-Luc Godard’s famous jump cuts in Breathless (1960)) to question and play with the form, and if anyone was to use aspects of Things on purpose, I would argue that the results would be legitimately great and fascinating cinema. Things itself is a memorable and constantly engaging film even in moments of boredom because you have no idea where it will go, utterly charming in its oddness if judged by its own perimeters. Things complete displacement from a narrative and a point to its existence, for example for myself as a viewer, is hilariously inspired in hindsight to viewing so many films that are handicapped by the idea of cinema as a story. The first half even reminded me of Andy Warhol’s The Nude Restaurant (1967), a semi-strange work that is people just talking for its whole length, if recreated as a home movie of Canadians drinking beer for hours and speaking the first things that come to their minds.

And of more importance to why this is loved by a small fanbase, that I will now add myself to, is because this is whole done within a film that can glad be put in the category of ‘weird’ cinema amongst the higher budgeted and more acclaimed occupants. The post-synch sound and video grain already creates a ghostly, Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers (2009)-like effect on the movie, but starting with an opening scene, basement set dream sequence of an undressing demon woman with a rubber, budget store mask on is a perfect warning to the viewer of how the homemade cheapness and the peculiar choices of its creators have melded together in one strange viewing experience. This does not take into account the video inserts of a news reporter (porn star Amber Lynn) who is almost an omnipresent narrator who has no connection to the events in the main setting, and at one point talks about the director George A Romero trying to get back the copyright back to Night of The Living Dead (1968) and is never uttered about again. Things does have a narrative conclusion but how it gets to it has no interest in going from A to Z but rather from A to a completely different and made-up alphabet.

The results will test many, but someone who is familiar with this film or has a taste in viewing ‘bad’ cinema has the right mentality to get the most from it. This is the kind of film that, if viewed properly, becomes ‘good’ cinema for either a) how unique it is regardless of being a failure, b) a charm and sincerity to what you see, or c) pushes itself into a groove that baffles and amazes at the same time. Things ticks all three boxes, a personal project funded out of the creators own resourcefulness that, for its mistakes, has a lot more to love and appreciate than other films. Just remember to get yourself in the right mood to view, maybe bring some beer with you, and avoid the growing number of giant ant-like creatures that will appear from the television after putting the DVD disc or VHS in....

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low) – High

Personal Rating – 7 out of 10