Skip to main content

Bizarre (aka Brooklyn Bizzare)

There cannot be a more apt title for this film, which totally lives unto its title. As a Viewer, you really can’t figure out what’s the purpose of the film, where it is headed and what’s it even trying to say. A truly bizarre film. set in Brooklyn about a young immigrant boy’s story trying to find his identity in a new city.

Maurice, a reticent young homeless man, somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at Bizarre, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their self-selected family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka, who also works in the same place. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. There is a bit of jealousy when Luka gives in to Maurice’s straight friend who fucks anything that moves. Luka just cannot understand what is Maurice’s feelings towards him. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city and in his boxing club. Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace. There is apparently some back story which we are never told about.

There are so many  things that are ‘bizarre’ about this film. why did the girls end up approaching a random stranger to work with them and even live with them is a mystery. Luka, who forgets his keys one night, sleeps with Maurice but next thing we know is that he is pretty much moved in with him. What is Maurice’s past? Are the lesbian couple in open relationship or just teasing Maurice because he is so charmingly cute! We don’t know. Logic is not really the strong point of this film, for sure. The film is trying to not take any stand for anything; be it Maurice’s sexuality or other queer members, who strangely all have a double life. Maurice’s character is loosely defined and lack of no proper story track around him makes this film about nothing at all. Having said these, I thought the performances of all the actors was quite believable. They were god and yes Maurice was damn god looking in a twin sort of way.  There are too many burlesque routines in the film, although few of them good, have absolutely nothing to do with the plot. The dialogues are minimal and most important events are captured via loud background music.

All we have here is yet another gay themed tragedy that is ‘bizarre’ in true sense, a senseless odd film with a very attractive lead character for eye candy. (2.5/10)

Comments

Unknown said…
Role of Maurice in this movie was not to portray any emotions upon other characters hence other characters believed what they wanted to believe it was reflection of their emotions upon them. Maurice did a good job of being a muse and keeping very neural emotions. role of Maurice was to NOT have any emotional role in the film and just be a body " muse ".
Golu said…
Thats a very interesting perspective. I didn't think of it that way
Unknown said…
I'm still wondering about the end, what happened? The problem with the ending is the lack of a backstory to Maurice and that man
Golu said…
I would have agreed but if you see the first comment by myworld426, he does have a point.
Anonymous said…
Pierre Prieur played the role on the movie very well. i can catch the emotion he shown on the movie and it feels really hurt. i wish i could congratulate him directly.
Golu said…
I am sure if you tried hard enough, you may be able to find his twitter/email kinda account and wish him directly
ILHiker said…
I watched this one today. I agree with your review and also with the comments, though I think that the reason Maurice didn't show any emotion is that the character is a psychopath, someone who doesn't feel emotions like others do and has a lack of moral scruples in their actions. His treatment of Luka is just odd and he never seems to sh ow a sexual or romantic interest in anyone, just a curiosity. I watched the whole thing, though with some fast forwarding. It did have the eye candy factor, but the frontal nudity annoyed me. It seemed like they mostly played hide-the-weenie except for showing Maurice's once when he was in bed with the girls (though not convinced it actually was his given the way the shot was framed) and Charlie's once (but the tumescence made me think it was fake). I assumed the man who attacked Maurice was someone he'd wronged back in France and that he did the things he did after because he wanted a clean start, right down to the clothes on his back. I wish we lived physically close, because this next fact would prompt me to get us together for a hate-movie-festival: IMDB says a sequel to this movie came out this very month, seven years later!!!!!
Golu said…
" It seemed like they mostly played hide-the-weenie " lol
are you serious about the sequel? run! run! run!
ILHiker said…
I am totally serious about the sequel - it's on the IMDB page! IF you see that it's playing at a festival, I'll meet you there, as long as it's on the North American continent.
Golu said…
you never know. Maybe it will have a special showcase in Brooklyn.

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who

Ultimate masturbation: Shigoki no yama (Japanese) [The Ultimate Masturbation]

I would never know what was the point behind making this film. Was it supposed to be a comedy, cos it wasn't. It wasn't even porn. It was just a silly attempt at making something absolutely senseless and ridiculous. The story, as well as direction is equally shoddy. You could laugh for having seen something so bad, but I wouldn't call that comedy. An old man runs a camp about gay masturbation. The explanation given is that gays masturbate for pleasure unlike straight men, for whom the act is seen as shame or because they can't find a woman. One day a straight man shows up and wants to join the camp for his thesis. After discussion, he is allowed in. Rules include that you can masturbate together, you can masturbate one another, but there is no fellatio or anal sex. Some students of course breaks rule. The teacher then talks about 2 forms of masturbation which gives ultimate pleasure. He shows one without touching and then refuses to talk of the other. Somehow suddenly,