WILD SIDE (2004)

While discussing his provocative new feature, Wild Side, French filmmaker Sbastien Lifshitz (Come Undone [2000]) recently stated that "Im drawn to impenetrable characters that operate outside the usual norms. I truly love fringe dwellers and people who dont fit with fictions archetypes." His latest features three characters -- Stphanie (Stphanie Michelini), a transsexual prostitute; Jamel (Yasmine Belmadi), a bisexual Arab hustler; and Mikhail (Edouard Nikitine), Stephanies lover who happens to be an illegal Russian immigrant -- that certainly do fit the bill.

Stphanie is seen living the hard life in Paris early on with her two "men." But the situation changes when she is called by her dying mother to come attend to her. As Stphanie makes her way towards her rural childhood home, old memories involving her deceased father and sister come flooding in. At this point, Lifshitz, working with the great cinematographer Agns Godard, who is most famous for her work with Claire Denis, starts to contrast the dingy realism of his early sequences with poetic, picturesque shots of the French countryside featuring a rollicking young Stphanie (who was once Pierre). While this allows the directors artistic sensibilities to thrive, the connection between Stphanie's past and present remains oblique at best. Ultimately, both Jamel and Mikhail, who were practically lost without their woman, make their way to her for support. Those two also remain "impenetrable" for the most part -- the way Lifshitz perhaps wanted them to be as they are often seen brooding silently to Jocelyn Pooks vocative score (a whiff of Patrice Chreau is hard to miss). What Wild Side establishes quite well, however, are the dynamics of the relationship between the trio. It is also a rare film that refuses to make its characters sexuality the main focus. Thats not to say that the film shies away from it (a slow pan of Stephanies body is bound to make Catherine Breillat envious), but rather the confrontations are presented in a very practical manner. Liftsitzs characters may not need others but they do need one another, and thats the only way they will survive. Wild Side is a film made by and for adults.

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*The film is now available on DVD in the U.S.