Sleeping Beauty (2011)

The life of a white lumpen-proletariat University student in Australia in the present age. To support herself, she has to work at several jobs -- at a café, at a research lab as a test subject, and as a prostitute. She answers an ad looking for women to work as high-class prostitutes who are required to perform some unusual tasks.

This movie by an Australian female underwhelmed some viewers (judging from the mediocre rating it received on IMDB), a fact which surprised me, and which I cannot explain with certainty. It's not that I liked the movie much more than them; it's that I was under the assumption that this, like most independent movies, was the kind of movie that was either loved or not watched at all. In fact, low ratings are rare on IMDB. People generally get what they asked for, and know what they are about to get beforehand. Anyway, in this case it apparently didn't work this way. Possible causes for this is that the movie has no plot, a somewhat abrupt ending, and, generally, little explanation for what happens (some scenes are downright enigmatic). For me, these were real flaws of the movie. But the fact that more than a few people did not like it may signal that the movie somehow expresses ideas, or exposes facts, that defy current ideologies among the "indie" crowd. For example, there is a case for it being interpreted as an anti-feminist movie. Its protagonist would, under this interpretation, stand for the modern liberated woman who has nothing but a huge vacuum inside of her. Also (and this is by no means uncorrelated to the first interpretation) it may be seen as a denunciation of the decay of the European ethnicity in Australia. This is the story of a white woman (a redhead, so there can be no doubt) in perfectly good health, whose only medication is "the pill", and who has no apparent family ties and no support group; her only friend is a young guy who is a chronic depressive and an alcoholic. In fact, the white people in the movie do not interact much, and show little or no sympathy for one another. The aging customers of the brothel she works at are quite probably the elite of Australia, and therefore share more than a little responsibility for the state of things in that country. One of them, who wears a Viking-like ponytail, tries to act out his primal fantasy of carrying a naked virgin in his arms... and fails. There are other peoples besides Maoris who once were warriors. It is about time this sleeping beauty awakens.

Rating: 53