Bijou starts with spooky, militaristic music full of crescendos and minor chords. We see a construction pit that looks like it could be a war scene: A construction workers wears a hardhat that looks like a WWI Infantry helmet, he operates a machine that looks like a WWII tank. It's all very band of brothers. I suppose that it's meant to show us the camaraderie of men...I suppose.
Wakefield Poole wanted to make an abstract movie that made everyone come away with a different view of what they had just watched, where every viewer found their own meaning.
Art films from the Seventies, oh joy.
The film crosscuts scenes from three different settings: a construction worker going home from work, a woman who's smiling, broadly as she jay-walks her way around Manhattan, and a scowling guy driving a Mercedes. There images of wheels, I don't know why, I don't think the director knows either. The woman jaywalks one last time, gets hit by the Mercedes, and the construction worker, steals her purse. Yeah, that all makes sense...except of course, it doesn't!
Wakefield Poole waxes on in the commentary about the "tension" created by the protagonist stealing the purse. He claims that it keeps the viewer's attention. He could have a point:
"The imageries of pornography actively play with, and try to evoke, such ambivalent entanglements in order to grab audience attention. An image may evoke disgust in one person, amusement in another, or sexual arousal and fury in yet others." (Paasonen)
He certainly got my attention. And my disgust. Not disgust at this being a porn film, or a gay porn film. (though I must admit to a certain amount of disgust upon realizing it was an art film from the seventies) What engendered my disgust was the act of stealing the injured woman's purse. He lost my sympathy and he became an unlikeable protagonist. I'm not certain this was Mr. Poole intent, but he does go on to speak about people wanting to know what it meant that the character stole the purse: "It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but the fact that you don't know what it means is what's intriguing about it. And so, you have to make up your own version about what's going on here."
Okay, fine, it doesn't really mean anything, but...
The protagonist goes back to his dingy walk-up, dumps the purse and looks through the contents. According to the commentary, the things in the purse supposedly represent the things that cause us problems in life. The rosary for religion, a picture of a lover, keys that represent responsibility...oh, yeah, and a ticket for Bijou "tonight only" (which is likely the only real reason the car/girl/accident/purse thing even happened) It's interesting that a filmmaker that wants to create a film without any specific meaning would weave it with so much symbolic imagery-and even discuss the meaning of that imagery in his commentary.
(I wonder what the wheels in the end of the construction site scene and the beginning of the driving scene really meant. Oh! Yeah! I'm supposed to assign my own meaning)
The main character is fixated by a lipstick, repeatedly tonguing it-why? Lipstick tastes bad. I guess it's supposed to be sexy. It's not. He masturbates, and we see his huge cock in one hand, his other hand holding the tiny lipstick. Contrast, perhaps? He stops, goes to the shower, masturbates some more, but never really seems involved in his own body. At one point he's almost in his own flesh, but he flashes back to the woman being killed and loses his...focus. Long story short he looks at the ticket again-the commentary hinting that the flashback reminded him-and dresses to go out. The filmmaker utilizes cliched voyeuristic shots from a darkened room into the brightly lit room the character is in, using the doorway as a frame. The last shot of his room is the face of a hellish looking man, demon, Rockstar, Rasputin, who can tell? The ominous look makes me think it's foreshadowing, but the commentary tells us that this is El Greco's "Christ" which is supposed to be a "clue" to the character's character-though a better clue is provided in next scene, when Bijou is called the protagonist's "place of worship on Prince Street". We are also told that his "curiosity and courage" are what makes him go there)
The commentary tells us how important music is to this film, so I can't forget to mention the music in the apartment. Zeppelin:
"Been dazed and confused for so long it's not true
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you
Lots of people talk and few of them know
Soul of a woman was created below, yeah"
Dazed and confused, got it. Wanted a woman, but, soul of a woman, etc. Understood. Women bad. Gay porn, okey-dokey. ('scuse the snark, but the only truly obvious bit of metaphor in the whole damned film, and this is it?)
Now, to the Place of Worship on Prince St. which our protagonist finds easily, despite a lack of apparent address or indication that he's in the right place. There's a long shot of him coming up a narrow staircase into a darkened vestibule with a garishly lit ticket window, manned by an equally garish older woman: clownlike, loud blue eyeshadow, false lashes with gobs of glue stringing down from the corner of her eye. It's all carnival, with circus music and lit in high contrast, with quick focus pulls to extreme close-ups of the clown-like woman. A sign on the wall says Bijou in flashing lighting. Clown-woman utters the first dialogue of the film "Right through there." Off our "hero" goes following directions lit on the walls like this happens every day. (this must be the "courage and curiosity" the filmmaker spoke of) He takes off his shoes, then clothes, stands in a section of funhouse mirrors fondling and caressing himself, then he's in a circle of himself, holding his own hands. Narcissistic much? His image morphs into that of another man but changes back to his own when he reaches out...he's walks through a hallway of gold mylar curtains so sparkly, so shiny, so mysterious! (have I said how much I hate 70's art films?) We pass bizarre sculptural elements, that I think are supposed to represent body parts. (One of them is a tongue coming out of a mouth, but the tongue is really a penis) The commentary tells us what these images are all about: "This was the seventies, the height of the drug period." (finally, something that makes sense)"These are the sorts of things we liked to look at, when we were high on marijuana or mescaline or whatever we were on...I wanted to create an 'Oh WOW!' effect." Okay, now this is something I get, even though it features the overindulgences of the seventies art world, I now understand where it's coming from! But, far be it from me to let a bit of understanding prevent me from going full snark on the next bit of the film:
A man lies spread eagle with a strobe light flashing on his naked body. So, our hero fucks him. I mean, why not? The guy was just lying there. The sex scene is shot in such a way that it's hard to tell where one body begins, and the other ends. Even the penetration view looks like one double headed cock and two assholes. Again, how very narcissistic. (And how very seventies! Did Peter max art direct this scene?) Finally, the two bodies separate and reach tenderly for each other. I mean, of course you've got to have tender feelings for some random stranger you've just randomly fucked!
Next is a bunch of arty-arty nonsense with a split screen and some masturbatory money shots, which turn out to be the other actors screen tests, (hey film was expensive, why waste those money shots!) followed by a series of "nibble-nibble-suck"s, then all five men posing like Greco-Roman men on the vases and plates unearthed in places like Pompeii. (you know, all those sex-scenes that the Victorians hid away in their secret museums) The men seem nearly as static as a painting on a plate. They seem uninvolved, taking no pleasure in what they're doing-they're mostly flaccid, so what does that say about their level of involvement? They all look dreamy, uncertain or bored. Or maybe high, which is verified in the commentary. (of course it is!) The commentary also verifies my comparison of the men onscreen to Grecian art: the orgy scene was modeled after Greek and Roman art from antiquity, though he rationalizes the boring pace of it by saying that he wanted the mood to be "almost religious, very spiritual." He also implied some misdirection that would explain the men's tentative actions and slow movements: he wanted the guys to behave as though it could've been their first time with a man. After all, the ticket was in a woman's purse, these guys were probably expecting a woman-or so he wanted the audience to suspect. (and again, for a film where the audience is supposed to make up their own take of what is happening, he certainly reveals a ton of subtext in his commentary!) He wanted everyone's sexuality to be ambiguous, he wanted the orgy to be "languid and slow" (and, boy howdy did he succeed on that one)
The scene ends with a series of ever-so-arty focus pulls of the klieg lights with different colored gels. (If I had to assign meaning to these focus pulls I would suspect that they represent the in and out of fucking. But, that's just my interpretation) And...there is an awful lot of walking around in this movie! (which is also verified in the commentary) Everyone leaves, except for the protagonist, who looks rather sad. (Finally! There's SOME emotion in this movie!) He sleeps. He wakes up. (here the commentary reveals some other potential misdirection by the filmmaker: "Did it really happen? Was it all a dream?") He reverses course, putting ON his clothes, then his shoes, then his jacket, passes through the hall of mirrors, passes the clown-woman, (who utters the only OTHER dialogue in this movie) walks outside lights up a smoke, faces the camera and SMILES the biggest, brightest smile you've ever seen...
Art films of the seventies. We're not supposed to understand them. And I don't.