EXOTICA

In this sultry feature, the director of “Family Viewing” (12th CIFF, 1988) and “Speaking Parts” (14th CIFF, 1990) explore the inner depths of individuals who never stop playing out the perverse rituals of some painful, haunted past. EXOTICA weaves together the lives of a disparate group of people around the common locale of a strip club. Eric, a disc jockey, and Christina, a stripper/table dancer have a tangled relationship that extends beyond the walls of Exotica, the club where they work. Francis is a tax collector who tries to fill a void in this life by watching Christina dance for him, in the chararcter of a young school girl. Thomas, a young pet shop owner, and Zoe, the club's iron fisted pregnant owner, also become ensnared in Exotica's universe of transgression. The story is built on suggestions and allusions that are never really quite what they seem, and the peeling back of the story's successive layers creates both a looming sense of dread and a sense of disorientation about the nature of this world.