GRILLED: GREAT ECSTASY
OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL (2005)
recent DVD acquisitions
Ultra violence on the silver screen.
Who the heck is Robert Carmichael?
It was the first question in my mind after picking the DVD from Stall 1. The store owner asked me if i am into film-making. I told him i was doing a film blog. He said, "if you know Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, you better watch this." That time, a noobe on films, i didn't know any name like Kubrick. So i asked him where Clockwork Orange was and he gave me a copy. I bought the two DVDs in that single occasion for 150 pesos and just last Monday night i played the Great Ecstasy and God knows how i was astonished by the film content.
It was a tumultuous performance of the director, Thomas Clay! . it is even a more violating film in terms of socio-ideological position that Clockwork Orange. What the film has achieved is definitely a absolution of a sado-masochist form in film. The elegant cinematography is so effective that the audience will question themselves how much the camera's role have done. Thomas Clay uses a circumference long shot on the drug/rape room scene with precision enough to make your jaw drop. The scene was about 10 minutes in lenght. Imagine that!
The last scene pays tribute to Kubrick's breathtaking ultraviolent rape/rob scene. However, Thomas Clay extended this scene into categorically impossible heights in film-making. It offers a lot of question on morality and the role of the audience.
it offers a lot of debate in film-making. The absolute form of expression of sexual violence is at it's height here.
And I do not denounce the film for all of that.
I regard it as a triumph because it rectifies the whole mainstream of film making now a days. Mainstream cinema needs blood, and Thomas Clay gave it a dash with his GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICAHEL (2005).
Enjoy the trailer!
Ciao! God bless!
