Singapore Sling

1990 neo-noir comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A heartbroken detective searches for a missing woman and runs into a mother and daughter who may have all the answers.

Nothing can prepare most of you for the kinky neo-noir delights of this Nikos Nikolaidis movie. Looking at the imdb plot keywords might help. Have a gander at these:

non statutory female on male rape, stabbed in the crotch, vomiting in someone's face, woman urinating in a man's face, rape revenge, dildo, rape, multiple languages, strap on dildo, sex slave, sex while asleep, urination, female pubic hair, transvestism, performing fellatio on strap-on, incest, object in vagina, cupping, sex with fruit, bondage, cannibalism, black comedy, masturbation, and (my personal favorite) kiwi.

Those are just the ones that I feel comfortable typing out.

If it wasn't so artistically shot, it would be easy to call this sleaze. The black and white cinematography stuns even when the character quirks, kinky sex scenes, and musical allusions to Laura befuddle. It satirizes noir tropes while throwing in surrealistic touches and an avant-garde glaze. Parallel visuals, recurring musical cues, repeated lines, and other odd touches contribute to make this a puzzle that might not even have a solution. At least I didn't get it. It seems to be have a lot to do with obsession, but that's about as far as I got. The mother/daughter relationship, mentions of a father (who appears as a mummy for some reason), characters who are either mute or pretending to be mute or have their ability to talk temporarily taken away from them, a connection between violence and sex. The story is a simple enough one, but there's a complexity and richness to the whole thing.

Panos Thanassoulis plays the titular detective, mostly silently. He provides some narration, but is mostly an observer or a face to urinate upon. Michele Valley, who plays the mother, might be a face you recognize from Dogtooth, where she also played the mother. Best of all is Meredyth Herold as the daughter, a performance that is even more fearless than Valley's. There's an innocence she brings to this completely demented character, and the way she stammers her lines, although I have no idea what it adds to anything, is endearing. I just thought she was great, and I'm bummed to see she's only been in a couple other films. Though their sex acts are perverse--but I won't judge if golden showers or vomiting happen to be your thing--and their eating habits even more grotesque, I found both of the female characters extremely attractive. I don't know if I was supposed to or not.

I was trying to think of something this might remind me of and settled on Thundercrack!, although it's a lot more professional and likely even more coherent than that bit of experimental pornography. But really, it's not like that or anything else I've seen at all. That might just mean I've not been watching the right movies.