The Monkey's Mask (2001)

How sad is this?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I could not find anything interesting in this film. Prose and poetry divided into chapter headings and dished up as an experimental film failed as a piece of entertainment. Let it be a lesson to other film makers.Don't be misled by the title. The writer chose the title before she wrote the book because she rather liked the Japanese haiku of that name. Believe me, there are no monkeys or masks, but after due consideration they might have livened up the film.The sex scenes were passable but with little delicacy. The writer said she had hoped for a more grubby presentation of those scenes. I could not see much point in the scene where the woman walks into a room with her panties off. Do lesbians like to advertise their pubic hair? On the positive side the cinema photography was excellent. Glimpses of Sydney harbour and its famous bridge put me in a great mood anticipating what beautiful scenes might follow. Alas! What a strange mixture.In one of the final scenes we see a notice warning people to take care because the Sydney Harbour rocks are slippery. I waited in trepidation because i was sure something terrible was about to take place. But no! We hear a man addressing a lesbian investigator ...."Thank you for making love to my wife; you sure put a light in her eyes".I'd be surprised to learn if a film like this could prove to be a profitable venture. My recommendation: AVOID!

Dorothy Porter's book "The Monkey's Mask" was a groundbreaker on numerous levels. The text was a novel constructed from poetic verse ("is it a novel or a bloody long poem"? one commentator asked). Furthermore, Porter took a harboiled detective/ noir narrative and relocated it from the streets of NY or LA to seamy inner-city Sydney. Where once we had misogynist male gumshoes(i.e. Sam Spade), Porter gave us Jill Fitzpatrick, a female detective who was also - and proudly - a lesbian.So how does it translate to film? Very interestingly, indeed.The story (for those unfamiliar) entails Jill investigating the disappearance and subsequent murder of Mickey Norris, a young Uni student whose amateurish poetry is laced with sex and death. Jill's investigation leads her into Sydney's incestuous poetry scene, and particularly into the bed of Diana Maitland, Jill's duplicituous lecturer. And that's where trouble starts ...Susie Porter and Kelly McGillis are brilliant as Jill and Diana respectively. There is more emphasis given here to the sexual side of their relationship than there was in Porter's text, and some of the sex scenes do, alas, border on fetishistic.However, I was fascinated by the way their relationship was mediated by a whole range of other factors. There is class: Diana is an uber-wealthy city dweller who dines at Darling Harbour, while Jill is a working-class woman living in a dingy caravan on Sydney's exclusive North Shore. Also, Diana is entwined in two seedy 'scenes': the poetry world, and the world of English/cultural studies academia. The seamy, incestuous, inhumane side of academia has been explored in films as diverse as Hitchcock's 'Rope' (which TMM bears a resemblance to stylistically- and that also had homosexuality as a theme) to the 1970s horror film 'Bloodsuckers' (an appropriate title for Diana). In The Monkey's Mask, Diana talks down about her students (the women in her class love 'victim poetry', apparently). When Jill tells her of Mickey's gruesome murder, Diana is more excited over her latest academic grant!In support, Marton Csokas was brilliant as Diana's 'kept man' Nick. He reminded me of Vincent Price's 'kept man'/ playboy in the 1944 noir classic 'Laura'. Unfortunately, the rest of the supporting cast are under-used. As Jill's father, Chris Winwood is given little to do bar totter around with a whisky bottle. Then there is the talented Deborah Mailman, wasted in a thinly-sketched role as Jill's best friend (the most she is given to do is 'come onto' her friend during a time of grief, and that - as another commentator suggested - suggests a dubious link between lesbians and sexual voraciousness. This is a link that is made absolutely concrete in Diana's character, whose evil is - in the film - largely attributed to her sexual appetite).Also, the movie's conclusion was too neat and polished, given all the ambiguity and uncertainty that preceded it. The ending of Porter's book wasn't nearly as cut-and-dried.And what was the point of Jill's closing line: "Forget the bitch"? Porter didn't mention that. Was its inclusion to comfort the (conservative, hetero, etc) viewer that the dangerous dyke relationship is over, and we can all sleep nice and easy. Worrying stuff, indeed.Having said that,though, Lang's 'The Monkey's Mask' is an interesting contributionto the noir genre. Stylish and sensual, with some great chemistry between the leads, it is intelligent entertainment that deserves a look.

Caught this on cable last night and I've decided that I like Susie Porter very much - she's got an incredibly expressive face (along with her adorable body, which we get to see a LOT of) and she was thoroughly convincing as the p.i. trying to solve the murder of a teenage poet while falling in love with the poet's teacher (Kelly McGillis, not quite believable in her role but she still looked good with Porter in the bathtub). Not very well-written or directed either - it's too long, too self-conscious and too convoluted - but it does have a certain style. . .and it DOES have the very appealing and watchable Porter.

Poetry, murder, lesbians... what else do we need really. Suzie Porter is fabulous as Jill, and Kelly McGillis is wonderful (and sexy) as Diana. The verse novel on which it is based is one of my favorite books. Translating a complex and beautiful verse novel into film would be difficult, however it is excecuted incredibly well. The poetry is present in some of the dialogue and in the voice of Jill as a narrator. The images of Sudney capture the city well, concentrating on the beauty rather than the rough patches.Beautiful