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Exotica Reviews
This movies is porn trying to disguise itself as something else. It is a bore. I object to sex workers dressing up like children. It's a very bad thing to do.
This plot is completely amazing in how the characters lives are shown to intersect. But not until the very end of the movie.
Boring. Dull. Bland characters with rediculious relationships.
I don't think I fully understood what the director wanted to tell through this film but I appreciated the ambiguousness and atmosphere. Look sexual or erotic on surface, but its not.
A beguiling mystery that demands complete attention. I wish more movies were this willing to challenge audience perception.
Perfect film. All time favourite. Yes, movies about tax audits and strip clubs can be fascinating.
Exotica feels like an erotic thriller despite being a drama due to his direction that really brings the tension. It is engaging due to his multidimensional characters who all slowly descent to madness while little by little interacting with each other. There is also some strong and thought-provoking dialogues. Mia Kirshner is electrical in her role, she has a huge sex-appeal here.
This film was introduced to me as an 'erotic thriller'. Holy hell this is not an erotic thriller, it's all the domestic collapse and tragedy of American Beauty but weirder and darker. Psychological and sexually charged doesn't mean erotic, and this film proves it. Exotica doesn't treat sex like a thrill or a passion, it treats it like an emotional crutch. Every character is missing something from their lives, whether they never had, slowly watched it fade away, or saw it torn from their hearts, and in response they congregate in this seedy strip club in Toronto; there this "secret world" as the film calls it is to some a way of life, to everyone vaguely ritualistic. There's this great atmosphere that the film gives off, both emotionally intense and reeling, that makes it clear that the characters are really just flailing in response to scenarios that they have no control over and have suffered through. At the same time, it's got a very David Lynch inventiveness to some of the story beats - including Don McKellar as a pet shop owner under audit that operates a smuggling ring for hyacinth macaw eggs - though I suppose each of those details could fall under the broader definition of the title's 'exotica'. Props for sidestepping a conventional structure to give some meat to the characters before letting the exposition filter in, challenging assumptions about motivation and purpose. It's really not as much of a thriller as it is a suburban sadness piece, but Atom Egoyan (as director, writer, and producer) does an excellent job of redefining sexuality as a means of crude escapism rather than the commodified version you might see as part of a commercial for body spray. (3.5/5)
A beguiling mystery that demands complete attention. I wish more movies were this willing to challenge audience perception.
Director Atom Egoyan has a pretty impressive resume thanks to films like Exotica, a dark and moody movie about loneliness, isolation, obsession and the need to connect with others. The film follows four characters as they navigate their way through life, trying to come to terms with the demons that possess them. Set primarily in an upscale strip joint called Exotica, the film inexorably draws the characters together in preparation for a finale that is both surprising and heartbreaking. The story, a glimpse into a world unfamiliar to most, is fascinating and Egoyan's sharp script gives depth to all of the characters. I'm still wondering what ultimately happened to Thomas' macaw eggs, but that's a minor loose end.
A dark strip joint with a silky but sinister sounding DJ sets the tone for a cast of interrelated characters each with their own demons. Egoyan does a masterful of weaving their individual threads into a dark tapestry by the end. Johnny C. sez your patience will be rewarded.
Genuine. Exotic, erotic and hypnotic music.
One of those few movies that makes it's overall narrative the primary focus while also being visually appealing. Atom Egoyan's first commercially successful film is tragic, harrowing, mysterious and extraordinarily framed.
Mia Kirshner and Bruce Greenwood are excellent. I didn't really love this kind of material though. Should have been more thrilling and enticing. The narrative wasn't really focused enough. These actors are shining but the movie itself didn't feel justified being told this way.
"Just because they're exotic doesn't mean they can't endure extremes. But it is after all a jungle out there, isn't it?" Exotica opens to a backdrop of exotic plants slowly panning across a wall. Lime-green credits emboldened on screen like the blood of these plants. In the word "Exotica" there's a feeling of eroticism lingering in its pronunciation. The term itself being erotic. It's through this exploration of alliteration that Egoyan alludes to the erotic nature of the film. He connects each character through exotic themes, each of them with their own story. The titular strip club, Exotica, the most obvious example. It's through this immediate connection that Atom Egoyan begins to subvert our expectations. Our perversities are implored through the opening scene, where we first meet our characters. Christina performs her schoolgirl routine to Canadian legend Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows, while Eric, the DJ, makes his voyeuristic narration. Francis is introduced to exotic themes through the club, but also through his black wife. His wife is never given a name in the film, and her race is explored before she is ever identified. I feel this is Egoyan making another connection to the exotic subversions he has implemented into his film. It's through his wife, and his daughter, that Francis is forced to endure the extremes of his life. Exotic themes are used to impose an idea of sexual fantasy, but later used to represent the traumas in these characters lives. Christina and Eric are introduced to these themes through the strip club. Eric, with a tropical bird perched in every frame, and Christina with her legendary strip tease performance. Her trauma being exposed front and center, but revealed as a fantasy, yet again. Eric, narrating voyeuristically, exposes himself to the viewer as well, using Christina and Francis to soothe his own traumas. Thomas is the most distant character from the others, but he opens the film, as he stands there under scrutiny at the airport, hiding the exotic eggs he is smuggling. He is tied in again to our central theme of exoticness. He operates an exotic pet shop, his fear and paranoia of his smuggling operation tie in directly with his homosexuality. Thomas' trauma lies within his isolation and loneliness. His traumas and coping mechanisms are shown through repetition as well, when he continues to pay for the tickets of attractive men outside the theater. He is confronted with homosexuality and the smuggling operation in the same scene, as the man he has sex with is the same man who visually inpsects him at the airport for illegal activity. In that same scene, his eggs are stolen and his traumas exposed. Perhaps the most minor major character of the film, Zoe, makes her introduction during Leonard Cohen's smoldering song. Her exotic nature expressed through her pregnancy, as well as her sexuality towards Christina. Herself, eventually exposed like the others. The loss of her mother posing as the detrimental trauma in her life. Instead of selling the club, she keeps it, reliving her mother's routine in an attempt to find resolve in her death. Again, Atom Egoyan uses repetition to impose these ideas, initially showing them as fantasy, and peeling back another layer with each re-enactment of their healing process. All of these characters are forced to face their traumas under the same circumstances, at the Exotica strip club. With even Zoe unable to take her own advice as she says to Francis, "But you have to understand that Exotica is here for your amusement. We're here to entertain, not to heal."
Excellently compelling, alluring, and original, I only wish I had found the ending a bit more satisfying.
A Great hidden film from the mid-1990s. A sexually charged movie that isn't really about sex at all. This story had me on the edge of my seat and although I knew a little about the story the ending still took me by surprise.
Francis (Bruce Greenwood) visits the strip club Exotica every night and gets Christina (Mia Kirshner) to dance for him. There's clearly something deep, personal and not entirely sexual between them. The club's DJ Eric (Elis Koteas) is Christina's former lover and has an unhealthy interest in what's going on between Francis and Christina. Francis's day job is an a tax auditor, and he's auditing the books a pet shop owned by Thomas (Don McKellar), who is hiding a lucrative smuggling business. Thomas will get pulled into the situation in the club. Everyone in this slow, methodical psycho-drama is connected via tight circles. Francis hires his niece to babysit even though he appears to have no child ... how is this connected to his relationship with Christina? The club owner (Arsinée Khanjian) is pregnant ... how is this related to Christina's anger at Eric? Ultimately, almost all questions are answered, and the common link between these characters is need.