I finally watched the Jane Campion produced Sleeping Beauty (2011) by first time director Julia Leigh and it was rather interesting if it wasn't so goddamn boring. I've been following this film for a while because it seemed bizarre, sexual, and Jane Campion had something to do with it, but it's the same old whore story, with a really sick twist. With that indie-film flare where people spend a lot of their time just walking without anything playing in the background, just to provide 'exposition' or as i like to call it 'time filler', Sleeping Beauty began to scare me after the first few scenes, kind of like the what the hell did I just get myself into scare. And yeah it turned out to be like Eyes Wide Shut (1999) on Xanax.
Lucy (Emily Browning) is a struggling student who supplements her income by being a guinea pig for a medical school and performing messy blow jobs for drunk Aussies in putrid upscale bars. One day she answers an ad in whatever Australia's version of The Pennysaver is (highly likely) for a strange kind of prostitution gig. It's of course very classy and the meticulously to match the insatiable appetite of their older and wealthy (probably) old money perverted clientele. There are weird dinner parties where all the men enjoy wine being poured to them by girls in bondage lengerie; just basically everything I once hoped and dreamed for myself, just kidding...or am I?
Lucy gets inspected for scars and moles. Yeah, I'd be annoyed too.
But what Lucy's particularly good at is sleeping. Let me explain. She drinks a special concoction that her pimp, a very classy older woman with a ridiculous Jean Paul-Gaultier in the 80's wardrobe and hairdo makes for her which I assume has a serious amount of tranquilizer in it, and that knocks her out. Then the Kubrick influence is prevalent again because we always cut to her in a room that I swear was designed after the dying room of Dr. David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969). She's lying there motionless in a dreamless sleep (hopefully) As an older naked man is able to do what ever he wants with her, except no penetration. One time an angry bastard puts his cigarette out in her ear, but you know, she's a whore so kind of goes with the territory, this happens for about 40 minutes of the film repeating itself and I'm praying I fall asleep myself and a young hot gentleman comes over and does stuff to me, instead of these old hairy somewhat aggressive and somewhat Uncle Fester meets Albert Brooks kind of men, but anyway I finally finished watching and there is a twist at the end, which almost makes this movie bearable but not really.
Cuddling but no fucking. It's a golden rule.
It's a poor Freshman effort and you're better off skipping it. It's like an Ozon movie gone wrong. If it was directed by a Frenchie it probably would have been eons better. Now if you'll excuse me I have to watch something else that has been staring at me in my queue for ages; Whore's Glory (2012), wish me luck.
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