High Art [VHS] [1999]

I think the star of the film is 'Greta', Lucy's drug-ridden girlfriend who is the most original antagonist I've seen; Irreverent, larger than life and supremely talented. There is no hope tacked on the end of this film, other than the success of Lucy's photo shoot - which is why I found it so different and enjoyable. It is a challenge, firstly, to those who only want to see Lesbians in happy, or at least redeeming films, and secondly, to those who are thinking of making budget films themselves; the director's commentary is very helpful.

Who would have thought that The Breakfast Club and Neighbours would ever meet in celluloid?

Ally Sheedy, never the coolest person in the 80's, and Radha Mitchell, star of Love and Other Catastrophes and Neighbours (!) meet when Lucy's (Sheedy) bath leaks into Syd's (Mitchell) flat. In the great film world of chance both live with the photographic image and while Lucy admits that she 'hasn't been deconstructed for years' the audience are compelled to look for meaning the whole way through.

Don't think that this film is just another girl meets girl love story because it isn't. It's about obsession, ambition, desire and being given the chance to try out being someone new. If this film were a book it would come from the pen of Jeannette Winterson, the mind of William Bouroughs and the heart of an early John Irving.

This film is darker than Bound and not as pretentious as Go Fish. It reaches into the pit of your stomach and the piercing noise that opens the film stays until the closing credits. It's a noise like a small broken heart hiding behind the sofa and as the narrative shoots to its inevitable conclusion your heart vibrates in your chest.

This film works not because the camera created a perfect 'deviant' underworld (of sexuality, drugs, hedonism and apathy) or because the characters were tied in sexual tension, not even because Sheedy and Mitchell filled their roles perfectly. No this film works because the story doesn't glamorise the characters' faults. It inspires you to take pictures and look out for high art.....

Greta, who 'lives for Lucy', is the perfect femme fatale. Destructive, self possessed and unable to function without a constant supply of drugs she acts as the measurement of Syd's respectability and drive. Indeed as the film progresses Syd becomes the reason Lucy finds her passion and manages to take tentative steps away from her onetime muse. In Greta we see Betty (Betty Blue) a doomed and frenetic lover who acts as a catalyst in the films narrative.

Like the film noir this film hides behind shadows and uses a very simplistic notion of darkness and light to show the characters feelings. On a light box everything is clear, even if not perfect. Lucy takes her pictures to tell a powerful story and in the end that's what we want to hold on to. An intense account of a chance meeting and a story that seems only half told.