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THE RASPBERRY REICH
(Bruce LaBruce)
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After years spent refining the queer sex aesthetic on screen, Bruce LaBruce has made his most contemporary film, and his greatest throwback. He shoots in digital video for the first time and uses a dizzying welter of effects.
But the chief inspiration here is Jean Luc Godard’s mid-60s films. A radical German woman urges her boyfriend to smash his bourgeois illusions by embracing bisexuality. Rutting ensues, of course, but it’s shot through with massive revolutionary red text racing across the screen, much of it punctuated by Godardian gunshots.
Yes, the barrage of sex and inside political references is as subtle as a fisting. But LaBruce has mastered the art-porn genre, and this is a movie that strokes many pleasure centres at once. This weekend’s screenings help christen the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art’s new downtown location.
LaBruce speaks after the Friday screening, with Noam Gonick and John McCullough. (February 25-26, MOCCA)
