Fur [DVD]

I enjoyed this film for what it is but others won't feel the same. The movie Fur pays essentially no attention to Arbus's career as a photographer. In fact, if you do not already know about her work and its themes, you will leave be upset like a few reviewers in here, other than to realize that she was interested in freaks. The film never really shows the part of her life when her career had blossomed, nor does it not explain how she developed her technical or artistic skills. (It wasn't from her experience in fashion photography with her husband. When she decided what she wanted to do, she studied the art of photography under a master.) What the film does do is to ask a theoretical question, "What set of circumstances could have transformed a Good Housekeeping housewife of 1957 into a kinky fetishist in 1967?" It imagines those circumstances as follows: Arbus meets Lionel, a sideshow freak with a condition that makes him appear to be Michael Landon in that Teenage Werewolf movie. (This is a completely fictional character.) She is immediately fascinated by him, and then attracted to him. Through her Beauty and the Beast affair with the human werewolf, she meets the people who used to be his colleagues on the sideshow circuit, and is transformed by her fascination with their world, and is astounded to find out how essentially normal and mundane it is beneath the sensational exterior. She begins to ponder the nature of normality itself.

"Fur" was directed by Steven Shainberg, who also directed the kinky Secretary. He seems to have a bit of the Arbus spirit in his own soul. Shainberg does an excellent job at capturing the tension inherent in Arbus's point of view, as she takes her first tentative steps from the mainstream into an under culture which both excites and terrifies her.The presence of Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey provides some real heft to this project, but the film still ultimately fails - for two reasons: First, Downey's wolf man make-up is a bit awkward when it should convey dark mystery and an ominous sense that the forbidden and outré are nearer than they seem. The film works perfectly when Downey is covered by grotesque masks, but falls apart when the teenage werewolf faces the camera squarely and makes you wonder. Second, the film drags on and on as we wait for Diane's transformation and then fails to show us the results after the great awakening finally arrives. It feels as if the Ben Hogan story ended with the car accident and a question about whether he could ever come back. In fact, the film never shows any examples of the art which Diane would develop after her cultural epiphany. "Fur" is Diane Arbus without the photographs, just as the recent Paltrow movie was Sylvia Plath without the poems.

It might be a better movie if it had committed to being 100% fictional or 100% biographical. With a better make-up job on the Beast, the movie could stand by itself with no reference at all to Diane Arbus as the Beauty, since it treats the biographical details as mere background elements in the dream-tale of how the Arbus metamorphosis might theoretically have happened. As it stands, Fur is an earnest and slick art film with only cult appeal. Most people are reluctant to watch a pretentious real biography of a tortured artist, let alone a make-believe version of same.

I know it is meant to be a tribute/fantasy, but with Kidman, Downey, etc in it I did expect a film worth watching. It is weird, strange, and decidedly offbeat. If you are expecting a film remotely about the real life of Arbus forget it, if you like fantasy, and Kidman in 50's style clothes and hair then it might be worth watching because she has to be one of the most beautiful/sexy actresses there is.

I know some people will like it being strange and i have to admit it is well acted by all concerned, very well filmed, just mot my kind of story line, but it may be yours.

Because it is well acted and well filmed I have given it 3/5, perhaps it is my fault for not being capable of appreciating the story line and ideas behind it.

If one forgets that the lead is meant to be a real person and approach this film for what it is, essentially a love story, then one won't be disappointed. I didn't know who Diane Arbus was before seeing the film and it made not a jot of difference. The storyline is not totally unrealistic - a bored housewife stumbling across a new and different world through the medium of a new neighbour and the effects it has on her family. The performances are strong, particularly Robert Downey Jr, who even covered in hair, remains as charismatic as ever.