jaibo Review of Of Freaks and Men

Of Freaks and Men (1998)

A great feel for the unruly elements of the psyche but very bleak

[7/10 · 19 April 2000]

This works on a dreamlike level rather than as a coherent story: the content is contained in the images and the relationships of the characters. Some of the events seem oddly motivated but make sense when seen as part of a tapestry. What is the tapestry depicting? The film is about the appropriation of a certain reality (which I would read as a psychological reality) by certain unruly elements in human nature. Those elements desire pleasure in pain and seek no relationships outside the exploitative. Amongst the central characters are a pair of Siamese twins but the filmmakers have gone out of their way to show that all of the characters are mental and emotional 'freaks'. What is interesting is that none of the characters who are exploited are really victims - they contain the seeds of their involvement in the central pornographic film-making within them from the first. This is even true of the Siamese, one of whom is innately drawn towards debauchery. The film is excellent at giving us the feel of a situation in which anarchic elements of the psyche rule. It is a bleak exercise - the characters who seem to escape to the West cannot escape their perverse desires (which bring them no happiness) and the idealist filmmaker portrayed is finally a sell-out. In that sense I found the film too bleak - there has to be some hope in the world! Maybe the filmmaker is attacking what has gone on in Russia since the fall of Communism: with the country run by gangsters and the people willingly being exploited. This film feels amazing but leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.