[yasr_overall_rating]
By day, Joanna crane is a prim workaholic fashion designer. At night she becomes China Blue, a kinky hooker on the streets of Los Angeles. But when she finds herself being followed by a private investigator, and stalked by a fanatical preacher, Joanna’s depraved double life threatens to explode.
(A brief side note before I get into actually reviewing “Crimes of Passion” by Ken Russell. This release of the film is by Arrow Films. I’m falling in love lately with the re-releases done by Arrow for a lot of reasons: the transfers are beautiful, and the extras often include a few good documentary shorts and very well done commentary tracks. Regardless of my actual response to “Crimes of Passion,” Arrow is continuing to present viewers with informative and provocative films from Malatesta’s “Carnival of Blood” to “Crimes of Passion.” And for this reviewer, who has always tried to find engaging films, I’m so consistently pleased with Arrow.)
After watching “Crimes of Passion,” my girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night and asked if we had watched a movie or if she’d had a dream. Dreamlike. That’s the perfect way to describe Ken Russell’s 1984 film. I saw the film years ago while I was still attending film school at New York University and for the life of me, all I could recall about the film was some of the shot compositions that emphasized blue light and the fact that the Reverend Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins) carried around a monstrous looking grey dildo that he called “Superman.”
The theme of “Crimes of Passion” is that good sex can drive a person out of their mind. And maybe that when you get down to it, sex is a very carnal instinct. The impulse for sex in this film leads to all sorts of unusual predicaments. Some even involving body horror including one particularly brutal scene with a billy club. But even the whole narrative of the film seems a bit feverish (and perhaps nightmarish). There’s one sequence where the film turns into something very close to one of those confusing and artsy ’80s music videos that you would have seen on the early days of MTV when bands like the Eurythmics were hot. But the film was directed by Ken Russell and anyone who has seen his more famous films, “Tommy” or “Altered States” can attest, Ken Russell never made ordinary movies.
“Crimes of Passion” stars Kathleen Turner, a former battered housewife who now works in a design/art job and moonlights as a prostitute by the name of China Blue. The Anthony Perkins character is a conflicted fanatical religious figure who has an addiction to puffers and prostitutes but also is trying to save China Blue from the dangers of depravity. The film was billed at time for using two famous figures from classic thrillers in opposing roles: Perkins from Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and Kathleen Turner from Lawrence Kasdan’s “Body Heat.”
The film is not at all shy about discussing sex and the film opens with China Blue performing a sexual act on a client, which is oddly intercut with scenes from the Kama Sutra during the most vulgar moments.
“Crimes of Passion” does not really get moving until we meet Bobby Grady (John Laughlin), who is a private detective hired to investigate China Blue. Before long, Grady finds himself sexually enamored with China Blue and acts as the ingenue into the world of depravity even proclaiming at one point, “I’m not too good at this. It’s my first time.”
China Blue, however, finds herself unable to deal with the intimacy created with Grady and as an escape mechanism dives deeper into the darkest abscess of sexual perversity. At one point, China Blue has a threesome with a disinterested rich couple, some particularly violent sex of which I’m not even sure of the mechanics with a police officer, and later China Blue is hired by the wife of a terminally ill man to have sex with the man before he dies.
I didn’t see much point in many of the sex scenes, which at times feel like reading an article out of a dirty book you’d find lying on the floor of a subway station.
The film builds to an inevitable climax where Grady must save China Blue from the dangerous Reverend Shaye. I understood the plot, but the dreamlike quality of this film leaves the viewer feeling like there was some greater subtext that we were supposed to perceive but did not. Actually, I’ve felt that way about all of Ken Russell’s films: like I’m not smart enough to process everything that he wants me to experience as a viewer.
Does it all work? On one level, it’s like a collaboration between a religious painting and a Hustler magazine. The secret may be that Ken Russell approaches his films with the technical skill of a classicist painter but the mind of a gonzo exploitation director.
Throughout most of the film, I was wondering how the actors had become convinced to act in this film. Annie Potts has a bit role and it’s the same year she appeared in “Ghostbusters,” how did she decide to get involved in this film? And did Anthony Perkins just have a penchant for playing psychotic killers? Of course, everything depends on Kathleen Turner’s performance in essentially dual roles. She is an intelligent, subtle actress, and actually does succeed in creating the impression that China Blue is nothing more than an assumed identity. The fact that Kathleen Turner does not act much any more is a true shame as she really was at one point in time a powerhouse of a performer.
The technical perfection of “Crimes of Passion” is not matched by the film’s story. I would have liked it more if the film had switched further between the worlds of sexual naiveté and perversity. The movie is a lesson in how to stage, light, and frame shots and while there are visually memorable moments, the film never adds up to more than its content. It’s the kind of film that if you asked someone if they saw it, they’ll pause and then say something like “I think so?”
Available now in a 2-Disc Special Edition Unrated & Unrated Director’s Cut Blu-ray from Arrow Video
