I am not kidding they tie him up, give him electric shocks, and use him for sex before urinating on his face. At what point does the torture make his loss of mental capacity real? While this is not a film to watch if you have a queasy stomach (think, Greenaway's, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover), our sense of revulsion is numbed by being drawn into the twisted aesthetics of the protagonists. He feigns a degree of distractedness to give himself time.
Who is Laura? Was she just a serving maid? Who is in the picture hanging on the wall? Singapore Sling is drawn into their deadly web after knocking on their door, a bullet wound in his shoulder. They re-enact murders as a refined sado-masochistic and incestuous ritual. Our female protagonists are mother and daughter. the girls would only have to plant flowers. in the old days, father would murder the servants. Baroque magnificence and delicate taste insulate us from the nastiness to follow.
And each scene in Singapore Sling is composed with equally mesmerising beauty. Rain fights with the flora, ricochets off surfaces, drenches the faces and bodices of two women who, with Hamlet-like grandeur, dig a grave. Lush, atmospheric shadows are thrown together as our senses are pounded by a thunderstorm. The black and white photography leaves us open-mouthed from the outset. Singapore Sling is just the nickname that the detective earns from a couple of female sociopaths, one of whom is worryingly like his dead Laura. The woman is Laura cue the plot line from the Otto Preminger classic and she is hauntingly described by the wistful Julie London version of the eponymous song (from a cappella to romantic Glen Miller). If that sounds familiar, it's meant to be. Without giving too much away (Singapore Sling is basically film noir with other elements forcefully mixed), the story concerns a dodgy private detective in love with a dead woman. And the cinematography would be Oscar-worthy were it not for the subject matter. And a cinematography award so we can make polite conversation about the nice photography.īut before we write it off as art-house exploitation, let me add that the plot machinations and breakthrough acting devices alone (that blend character, voice-over, narrating to the camera and rehearsing to the camera) put it in an exceptional class of movie. The promise of kinky sex, even with vomiting, incest and torture, sounds so much more respectable if it has subtitles and a dialogue in Greek, French and English. "How many films," he asks, "satisfy both your voyeuristic and artistic tastes?" He goes on to mention the awards Singapore Sling has won in its native Greece. Our film was fittingly introduced by a masked man with a heavy European accent. At the time of writing, The Filmhouse in Edinburgh runs seasons of 'psychotronic' film one of the many sub-genres at the midnight masses of secretive cinephiles. Late nighters may be rubbish or they may be the last bastion of artists that are out of synch with popular and critical tastes. Or films openly shocking like Pink Flamingoes. Such was the birth of films that include The Rocky Horror Show and Eraserhead. What happens to good films made totally against the grain? What if Botticelli's Venus was painted urinating into an acolyte's mouth? In cinema, such works can find their way to late night screenings, safely past the bedtime of anyone who might object or find them too 'off-beat'. Reviewed by Chris_Docker 8 / 10 A rare and worthwhile item (as long as you can stomach it)