The Scenic Route
Director: Mark Rappaport
Year Released: 1978
Rating: 2.0
A love triangle takes place between Lena (Marilyn Jones), her sister Estelle (Randy Danson) and non-verbal Paul (Kevin Wade) as they stand in front of Rappaport's backdrops consisting of paintings and stars and are told to appear "lost in thought." It's uniquely presented - like a slightly less glammy and hysterical Werner Schroeter - but in stripping the scenario of any kind of realism he renders it (deliberately) mechanical and artificial ... and thereby inconsequential on any emotional level. It works, I suppose, as a dry depiction of sibling rivalry (women competing for the affection of horny, generic males), but it's largely a theorist's tongue-in-cheek idea of a 'good film.'
