[yasr_overall_rating]
The film centers on a radical feminist group plotting a revolution to overthrow patriarchy in Germany.
Bruce La Bruce, writer/director of “The Misandrists,” is one of the originators of the “queercore” movement. In case you didn’t know, queercore is a punk-like social movement that targets the mistreatment of the LGBTQ community through films, art and punk music. In the 1980s, La Bruce was one of those punks, making low-budget, gay-themed films that featured a wide variety of sexually explicit acts. The raw nature of his work may have tamed a little, but, as is evident in “The Misandrists,” La Bruce’s attitude remains the same. Too bad his filmmaking skills are as terrible as his cause is admirable.
The film starts in 1999, “somewhere in Ger(wo)many” (are your knees being slapped yet?), followed by jarringly pink credits. The story, which I assume is a riff off Don Siegel’s “The Beguiled,” involves a wounded soldier taken in by two lesbians, Isolde (Kita Updike) and Helga (Lina Bembe), to their Female Liberation Army sanctuary. This is where the similarities between this film and the classic end. Each of the misandrists has a dark backstory, involving men, which led them to the feminist commune (under the guise of a nunnery). The film derails into a series of pastiches, most involving the inhabitants waxing poetic about their hatred of men, or taking classes where they learn textbook definitions of terms like “parthenogenesis,” or having dinner with Big Mother (Susanne Sachße), prior to which they chant a prayer-like hymn to a manless world (“Blessed be the Goddess of all worlds that has not made me a man”). I guess the thread connecting all of this appears around the 50-minute mark when the “sisters” decide to make a porn.
Whether La Bruce meant it all as a satire or a serious statement disguised as camp remains unclear. What would YOU make out of a sequence of stitched-together scenes like: massive dildos being shoved into orifices, golden showers, graphic footage of sex-realignment procedures, a tree-sniffing sequence, men continuously depicted as fascist pigs, an extended slow-motion pillow fight, and a red-hued group-porn shot involving an egg? What would YOU make of a script that includes tidbits such as: “We are free to love whomever we want… as long as she has a vagina,” or “prostitutes are human sacrifices?” “The Misandrists” transcends camp into the realms of cheap home-video footage, with a pretentious “I’m a legendary auteur” vibe leaving a nasty after-taste. Worst of all, it’s just not entertaining in the least.
The acting is terribly amateurish all around. The production value leaves a lot to be desired, with badly paced scenes, off-timing humor, and poor editing. The message is so incoherent and misguided (all men are terrible? Or extreme feminism is just as terrible?) and so single-minded it makes one wonder if the whole thing is an elaborate prank. Why are all the feminists wearing provocative schoolgirl uniforms, with skirts so short their panties are seen in virtually every other shot? For a film about extreme feminism – or the ridiculousness of such extreme feminism, whatever – it sure contains a lot of navel-gazing. Especially the last, oh-so-metaphorical close-up.
Maybe La Bruce thinks he’s the new John Waters. Maybe he’s a really talented essayist and provocateur. Maybe “The Misandrists” is punk. Maybe I’m a bigot who doesn’t get it. Or maybe it’s just lo-fi garbage.
Now playing in select theaters
