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Reviews
Voice Over (1982)
Efforts for re-releasing Voice Over
As Mr. Matthew Carter says, it's a fine film, and everybody is encouraged to help promoting the re-release of this film.
Bannerman is a successful radio host reading his own romance novellas over the wireless. One day, he encounters a young girl who has been exposed to a major trauma; perhaps she has been ravished. She shows severe signs of post-traumatic stress, is virtually non-communicative and traumatized to the point of outward apathy.
Bannerman's encounter with her stirs many of his emotions; from fatherly consideration to erotic (re-?)awakening. Suddenly he experiences life in its reality, no longer left only to his own devices, and no longer content with the made-up lives of his romance novella characters.
Unfortunately both for the girl he's nursing and for himself, he spirals to the pit of his own damaged soul, initially most notably apparent in his changing the style of his novellas, a change not well received by the public or his employers.
I've been looking for Voice Over since 1983. I've tried to contact Mr. Monger. I've pointed high-quality re-releasing DVD companies to this gem. No success anywhere. Voice Over deserves a better fate. Sorry to say, perhaps, it's Chris Monger's very best film, his latter efforts never nearly as concentrated, haunting and memorable. Whether Voice Over will or will not be re-released, I will live with it for the rest of my life.
Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) (1969)
Underrated
"Stereo" is an underrated early Cronenberg movie. People tend to find it inaccessible on the grounds that it is 'boring', or due to its quasi-intellectual voice-over soundtrack (which was applied since Cronenberg did not have enough money to spend on soundtrack film) or 'incomprehensible' plot. The voice-over naturally enhances the feeling of "verfremdung", which can be argued as being for the good of the final result.
The topic of a Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry is an extremely difficult one to pull off. The way it's made, however, with its austere milieu, its quasi-academic speaker voice and the contrasts between the harsh milieu and the characters' pursuit of the topic of the 'plot' makes it a rather good film its sparse conditions for creation considered, all the more if one is into austere films rather than bombastic ones. Hopefully some 'madwoman' or 'madman' will release a few copies of this movie on dvd, someday.