SCHIZOPOLIS
SYNOPSIS:
Fletcher Munson (Steven Soderbergh) works for a Scientology-like organisation known as
Eventualism. When a colleague dies, he is promoted to speechwriter for T. Azimuth
Schwitters (Mike Malone II), Eventualism’s founder and figurehead. While Munson
labours over his first assignment, his relationship with his wife (Betsy Brantley) is
deteriorating into domestic ennui. Then he makes a surprising discovery: He has a
doppelganger – successful dentist Dr Korchek (Steven Soderbergh… again) –
with whom his wife is having an affair. Meanwhile peculiar local pest exterminator, Elmo
Oxygen (Mike Malone II), is starring in a violent and sexual cinema verite production.
"The blurb on Schizopolis’ video cover attributes the following quote to
writer/ director/ star, Steven Soderbergh: "… all attempts at synopsising the
film have ended in failure and hospitalisation." And despite the intrepid attempt
above, it is true that succinctly describing Schizopolis’ narrative is a forlorn
endeavour. Steven 'Sex, Lies and Videotape' Soderbergh has cast aside all mainstream
convention to produce a slice of low budget cinema that fluctuates between scathing
satire, slapstick silliness and strident surrealism. Owing a little respectively to
Richard Lesters’ Beatles movies, Monty Python, Luis Bunuel, Marcel Duchamps and the
Dada movement, it is a dizzying montage of seemingly unrelated sequences rich in word
play, one-off jokes and social commentary. But there is more cohesion than is at first
apparent – and considering its running time (96 minutes) there would want to be; the
extreme surrealism of Bunuel and Dali’s Un Chien Andalou, for instance, is only
effective as a 17 minute short. The fractured and elliptical narrative does make for tough
going at times but viewers who hang in there are duly rewarded with moments of true
inspiration. Soderbergh has clearly been self-indulgent; dotted throughout the rambling,
recondite sequences are highly accessible sight-gags, parodies and witticisms that suggest
a more conventional yet just as irreverent product could easily have been forthcoming.
Instead, Soderbergh has uncompromisingly delivered an ambitious, audacious and abstruse
abstraction (if you’ll excuse the alliteration). The result is undoubtedly clever but
is it good entertainment? Not for everyone, is the answer… and no doubt Soderbergh
intended it that way."
Brad Green
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SCHIZOPOLIS (MA 15+)
(US)
CAST: Steven Soderbergh, Betsy Brantley, David Jensen, Mike Malone
DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh
PRODUCER: John Hardy
SCRIPT: Steven Soderbergh
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Steven Soderbergh
EDITOR: Sarah Flack
PRODUCTION DESIGN:
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR: Siren
VIDEO RELEASE: August 9, 1999
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