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Postmodernism's androgynous position, models and junkies like Janus heads: "Fuck yourself!" Fads and cliques in New Wave Manhattan, dull exhibits and parties comprise the shape-shifting realm, in fly intergalactic visitors seeking their own high. The center is a somnolent bohemian (Anne Carlisle), out of Connecticut and into the trendy maelstrom—her various flings forge a link with the aliens, who reap endorphins straight from the human brain during orgasm. (Dissolving solarizations register the process, victims are left with a miniature crystal arrow in their skulls or evaporate altogether.) "Miss America of the Eighties" and her affairs, they include the sneering roommate (Paula E. Sheppard), the drama teacher (Bob Brady), and the male doppelgänger with slicked Bowie pompadour. "Key to heaven, milk of paradise," question of the narcotized artiste, "Cocteau was Cocteau before he did drugs." The milieu calls for an extraterrestrial eye, thus German scientist (Otto von Wernherr) and Jewish cougar (Susan Doukas) behind the telescope and Soviet wanderer (Slava Tsukerman) behind the camera. "Apple pie, shit." Leroy Neiman smears and farting synthesizers are prevalent, tackiness is the ultimate insult. The title evokes Mallarmé, "Me and My Rhythm Box" is a different brand of poetry, for an encore Sheppard growls out an impromptu eulogy and sits on the corpse's face. Krish's Unearthly Stranger, Fassbinder's World on a Wire, Makavejev's Sweet Movie... A sardonic time capsule, a zonked-out ingénue's exploration of identity and sexuality. The parallel-editing hopscotch rhythm slows down for the penthouse soiree, where Carlisle's monologue melds the heroine's inquiry with her own, a Day-Glo face floating in the darkness: "I kill with my cunt. Isn't that fashionable?" Araki updates the epoch in Nowhere. With Elaine C. Grove, Stanley Knapp, and Jack Adalist.
--- Fernando F. Croce |