Strange Culture (2007)

Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely the worst movie.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I gave this documentary high marks only because of its chilling story and message and not necessarily for its production value (though it was still engaging.) In the tradition of other films in the genre like Erin Brokovich, Silkwood, Norma Rae, etc., this is another disturbing account of innocent lives destroyed by corporate greed and corrupt motives. Only in this case, art, education and the First Amendment are on trial along with the victim. Respected science teacher and artist, Steve Kurtz, wakes up one morning to find his wife, (dramatization played by the great Tilda Swinton) dead next to him in bed, with the cause of death quickly determined to be heart failure. The paramedics who arrive on the scene notice the art-show-related chemicals and science-lab paraphernalia and alert the FBI which leads to Kurtz being arrested for "bio-terrorism". It's a surreal nightmare for Kurtz who never even gets a chance to properly grieve the sudden loss of his wife. But things don't end once the "terrorist" charge is cleared due to insufficient evidence. Since his art show was conceived as an exposé to educate/inform the public about genetically-modified food, the powers that be (industry/companies) must make it go away. Helped by an ambitious prosecutor in search of career advancement and fame, the charge is swiftly changed to something that would stick: Mail fraud. Absurd? Not when powerful industry is involved and would stop at nothing to protect their interests.Tilda Swinton is wonderful here in the few dramatization scenes she's in. This is a film that was missed by many, but should be seen by all.

if a subject is worthy of making a doc about I don't know what's with all the belles and whistles. it was clearly a matter of Ms. Swinson being available to come in for a day. there was some kind of a disclaimer "the Artist who was persecuted is too sensitive to portray himself so he's portrayed by an Actor" well the guy playing opposite her was no Actor so her little ball busting turns didn't play that well. was it really all that they could come up with to depict the defenseless dead Frau as this bitch who has one thing on her mind: complaining about the Art not being done in a timely manner in both of her scenes, like some producer? oh and she not exactly lovingly pushes this brown suit and ugly tie on the Artist contemptuously remarking that she got them on sale as if that mitigates her hopeless attempt in her comme des garcons or whatever and chic hairdo to do something about this tardy ass slob she married who is making a living hell of her self starting detail oriented efforts at office management. in fact the actual husband's brief talking head appearance directly following these scenes indicates that her 'editing' and "gift for pattern recognition" were essential to the team's work. it would have made much more sense for her to be upset that she was not going to be able to have a look at this "material" herself before it "went out" instead of just fretting about a deadline for this show that was already booked as though it would be canceled or something. Actually, Tilly's day playing reminded me a a little of that early comic bit of Meryl streep as the castrating lesbian in "manhattan"! and of course she looked as incongruous opposite the schlub portraying her husband as Ms streep did opposite Mr. allen.for the first 30 minutes or so, interspersed with talking head clips, which actually render them superfluous, we get a bonanza of these totally trite, not ready for prime-time reenactments in "Docudrama" form of 1) a couple of teacher/student scenes (I don't know how low the standards of SUNY Buffalo have gotten, but I would imagine most students at any college aside from maybe the University of Miami would be familiar with "the McCarthy era" from their high school US history class), 2) the obligatory cheesy "artistic integrity" scene ("the McCarthy era" prof who wears a different wild n crazy shirt in every scene a collaborator of the Artist who is far too serious about his Work darling to "go Hawaiian" or to wear a suit for that matter, has misgivings about an Idea, "Ok I get this cause I'm weird and I'm your friend but I don't know if it's such a great CAREER MOVE!" of course as any Artist worth his salt would, our hero has to get really real man, explaining the concept of Artistic Integrity both for us and for the professor. 3) the aforementioned BB. scenes between Tilda and the Artist, 4) the absolute pits: the scene in which the Artist discovers the corpse of his wife. which this performer was not at all up to (a note to the director: when an 'actor' is whimpering and screwing up his face pretending to cry but no tears come use eye drops!) in which they really might have done something to make it less obvious that Ms. Swinon was no longer in the building - all we see is a hand! and 5) the initial confrontations with the fuzz n the feds. After we've sat through all of this double iteration of the preceding information? We're treated to A RECAP of almost every bit of the same, this time in hipster graphic novel format! (the producers of the film apparently refer to this all encompassing style as "docurama" for what that's worth) The "docurama" format sucked in "American Splendor" too as far as I'm concerned but at least in that film they had real actors involved for the long haul not just one star coming in for a day, as in some cheesy B picture in which someone given top billing turns out only to turn up in 2 scenes. And they may have pointlessly, tastelessly and annoyingly switched formats but at least they didn't repeat scenes 3 times apiece!As far as I'm concerned they definitely ought to have just stuck with the talking heads, only for some reason it was deemed OK to "grab" some of the doc footage with really crappy sound and inadequate light and when the artist himself is actually introduced the camera even slips a bit: oops! I mean why not retake the shot or make some kind of cut or something. eliminate him saying, "I'm Steve Kurtz, the Artist" while the camera slips, since they put his damn name in a title on top of his little bit anyway, and didn't have anybody else introduce themselves in this fashion!?!?! I can't deal with this kind of carelessness and neither should you. As you might expect though, when Ms. S was working they actually bothered to use microphones and get proper sound and the lighting was more or less adequate. How much better it would have been to take some of the wasted time to interview some of the fuzz 'n' feds involved (not that it's likely though they would have been as cooperative as Tilly) than to indulge in all this inept playacting and decoration and duplication stretching the film to 70 min (I believe, for you see, I didn't even get to the part with peter coyote, by then I turned it off life is too short and it was better to read about what happened online, just as one other review here suggests might be a better alternative). I loathed this film and was forced to give it the lowest possible rating!

I came to this because its folded. It is consists of some unsophisticated notions about "them" corrupting food, some art about it, deliberately folded into the artifacts, a documentary about the making of that art, a profile of the artist, outside the documentary, a story of how "they" interpret the art as a murder plot and a documentary of that story.And it has Tilda Swinton whose presence usually signals something profound.But the film is too clumsy to do its work. You can roughly get the facts. Its another case of an event that becomes caught up in forces no one controls... that finds its way into film by way of combat with similar forces. Those forces come from story threads, conventions, urges that this filmmaker is as helpless to control as the protagonist.There's one interesting idea here. The character played by Tilda is the artist's wife, Hope. She is the genius of an art collaborative, who is not an artist herself in the sense of creating. She is the "explainer," who makes the collaborative work by providing the story hooks into what these guys do.The story is triggered by her death. The authorities arrive and without her storyweaving ability, put together their own conspiracy about a conspiracy. This film could have used her.This film could have been "The Lives of Others," with the Bush FBI in place of the Stasi.Still, even if the film fails it is far, far more powerful a message than Moore could put together.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This film is a must see if you care or about the arts in the current political climate, or for that matter if you care about civil liberties in general. Strange Culture is very different from Lynn Hershman's other work--a unique documentary/narrative hybrid. An amazing and surreal performance by Thomas Jay Ryan. Though there is an amazing cast, the real star is Steve Kurtz, the Buffalo artist who is the subject of the film. Steve's heartbreaking retelling of his wife's death, and his subsequent arrest and legal wranglings is must see for anyone who believes are government is beyond reproach.This film is powerful, heart wrenching, and an outrageous indictment of the current state of political affairs.