Well, I spent the better part of last week in Baltimore. Man, that city is loaded with character and the more I get to know the place the more I’m a Believer. Charm City really inspires me and I'm going back in a few days! Religious readers out there, I need all the novenas I can get because I really want to land a certain gig there and make Baltimore my home!
Meanwhile, back in DC, I caught Where the Truth Lies, by my fave Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan. The film doesn’t seem to be getting much visibility in the US (nor did his last film Ararat- which unfurled an intruiging spin on the Arshile Gorky mythos and the genocide at the hands of the Turks) and in fact its playing right now here tucked away in crappiest of crap screening spaces in the last remaining movie theater around Dupont Circle. Egoyan is not everyone’s cup of tea – folks either find him too somber or too kinky - but Truth Lies is perhaps his most mainstream effort and top-bills Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as Jerry Lewis-Dean Martin type entertainers – and is well worth catching in the theaters while its around.
With bizarre timing, Where the Truth Lies serves as an excellent companion piece to the previously mentioned Capote and also food for interpretation as Jerry Lewis is currently hawking his recently-published paean to Dean Martin on all the chat shows.
The usual Egoyan themes are at play here and are unraveled in his characteristic and intriguing onion peel fashion – mystery, loss of innocence, obsession, grief, the Rashamon thing, etc. – and for those fans of his most visible Exotica, there is certainly a fair amount of fetish as well. Egoyan’s wfe, the amazing Arsinée Khanjian makes a brief cameo, and several other of the filmmaker’s usual players turn up, but Where the Truth Lies, set in high-rolling and glamorous Miami, Atlantic City, New York, and the Hollywood Hills of the sixties and early seventies is a departure from his usual contemporary, multi-racial and largely working-class Canadian tableaus.
The critics seem to be making much of the looming but hardly mentioned Watergate scandal looming behind the film’s narrative and setting; personally the film reminded me more of stylized, psychological film ala of David Lynch’s much-overlooked Mulholland Drive. Egoyan’s baroque and multi-faceted pieces are like layer cakes that way, actually, and that’s part of the unique experience. "Where the Truth Lies" could be the subtext of Egoyan's enire oevre.
Alison Lohman continues to be a revelation and appears to have cornered the market on girl-woman roles. Actually, this archetype seem to figure prominently in Egoyan’s body of work and methinks his protégée Sarah Polley might have been able to nail the nuanced role just as effectively. Haha, I just saw Polley kick Zombie butt in the Dawn of the Dead remake on cable on Halloween! Exotica starMia Kirshner, on the other hand, has gone over the edge by playing the most annoying character on the increasingly annoying L Word, plus she doesn’t have the blond, blue-eyed ingénue thing going for her, which is probably essential to the vibe of Where the Truth Lies.
At any rate, the performances are all sublime – Bacon and Firth are at the top of their game and quite astonishing. The art direction is also top-rate and inspired – Wallpaper* aficionados would be wise to use this film as a reference – and the irony is not lots on me that I spent a great deal of time in Baltimore last week looking at mid-century modernist furniture pieces on assignment (the city is a treasure trove!). The film is fascinating and mesmerizing, however I do think the director was over-reaching for an emotional wallop and poignancy that simply isn’t there – the story and the players are all so tawdry – so those looking for the resonance of Egoyan’s previous films, namely, The Sweet Hereafter, might find themselves a bit bereft.
Really? Nice to hear that. My friend Mare Heironymus is a dancer in Baltimore. When she was my classmate at risd, I wasn't hearing such lovely things about the place. Then again, Providence was also a hellhole and now is quite impressive I hear. Good thing to know that cities can change for the better within a persons lifetime. Hope you land the gig at the town of John Waters. Sounds like a real head trip.
Posted by: carlos c | November 13, 2005 at 06:35 PM
Bacon and Firth are at the top of their game and quite astonishing.
Posted by: tiffany jewellery | January 29, 2010 at 11:01 PM