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Bizarre
- Director: Etienne Faure
- Writer: Etienne Faure; Ray De Leon
- Producer: Ray De Leon; Stephane Gizard
CGiii Comment
Quite simply...this undeservedly, unsung film should be seen...
There is a strange and elegant beauty about it...echoes of Cabaret! T'is, in places, a visual extravaganza...of performance art and, quite conversely, a contemplative look at a - temporarily found - lost boy lost.
In the beginning, there is an interesting idea...when the voice-over states that the 'director' wanted 'me' to speak English, shame Faure didn't take this further...but, that is open to interpretation...although 'Maurice' says very little, his charisma is nothing less than scene-stealing, he is a voyeur who's being watched...by more than the camera.
He is distant. He seems to be neither in the here nor the now...yet, he manages to elicit love from everyone around him. It's quite impossible not to fall for this boy...he's vulnerable and he's a boxer.
His melancholy is never fully explained (perhaps, a bugbear for some), but that just adds to him being the alien in an alien land...the boy who came to America...for what reason? If any reason at all!
Bizarre is not without its flaws...some of the editing is a little haphazard, a few wobbly moments and there are a couple of scenes that needed to be scrapped...but, all can be easily forgiven...because of Maurice...
Loaded with dichotomies...where these dichotomies exist in a non-binary world...of bawdy burlesque and the end of boyhood.
A feast for thought!
A dream of a film.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Maurice, a reticent young homeless man somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at ‘Bizarre’, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their chosen family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city. He tries to find his feet at a boxing club, where he meets Charlie.
Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace. Étienne Faure shot his film on location at ‘Bizarre’. Illuminating the promise of an independent future for his aimless escapees in the resplendent creations of ‘Bizarre’s’ artistes, Faure moulds his keenly sensitive observations of these lost, disturbed souls to form a mesmerising trance.
Cast & Characters
Rebekah Underhill;
Luc Bierme;
Charlie Himmelstein;
Michael Glover;
Rita Azar;
Raquel Nave as Kim;
Pierre Prieur as Maurice;
Adrian James as Luca