Back Against the Wall

Description

In this "Lynch-like vision of the rotting underbelly of Middle America" (Stephen Holden, The New York Times), the downfall of a lingerie model is portrayed against the depressing, menacing milieus of the men she caters to, including an angry, jealous, middle-aged failure and his strange, no-necked friend. James Fotopoulos presents this dark, sinister story as a three-part feature in the unnerving, highly original style that has made him a major figure of the underground cinema.

Customer Reviews:

Dull, plodding, perverse, and poorly made.......2004-01-17

This black and white film is about on par with _Big Brother_ in its plodding insipidness. The film is hard to follow through the endless still-camera shots of pointless and redundant conversations and the director's obsession with masturbation. The characters aren't just quirky, they're farcical--one even appears to have joke store teeth. Fotopolous casts unengaging actors as characters neither intelligent nor interesting in a story that, really lacking any clarity, appears to be about a woman whose situation forces her into a career as a porn star, which she must to masked after her face is scarred. I think. I'm all for ambiguity as long as your mise-en-scène, camerawork, or editing is interesting, but sitting through this at the Naptown Underground Film Festival, which also had many of Fotopoulos's masturbation-obsessed shorts, was a major chore. If anything, this is more an effort at being offensive than an effort to make art.

DVD:

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