| FILTH AND WISDOM | ||||
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| Madonna
has made a dumb and tacky comedy-drama about three people sharing
a flat in a quaintly conceived "London" and her conception
of super-cool streetwise reality is so clueless it's as if Marie Antoinette
had made a film about cake-munching peasants. One of her characters
is a pill-popping pharmacy assistant; one's a wannabe ballerina forced
through poverty to work at a lap-dancing club; and the third is a
Ukrainian punk-poet who earns a few bob humiliating masochists while
wearing ex-Soviet military garb in his ratty bedroom. This last is
played by Eugene Hutz, who does occasionally raise a smile, but everything
else is a mess. Madonna's script is a nightmare of crass and fatuous stereotypes: south Asians, Jews, gays - no one escapes her lack of insight or common sense. Despite living in Britain for many years, she has only the sketchiest notion of what the place is like. Her film reaches a Zen state of pure offensive awfulness when the lap-dancer's mentor comes round with a gigantic wad of £20 notes. This was her "tips from last night". Her "tips"? From "last night"? Perhaps Madonna really does think that this is what lap-dancers make in a night. Or perhaps it's what she thinks they ought to make, or what they'd make if she was playing a lap-dancer in her acting pomp, the 80s era of Desperately Seeking Susan, whose picturesque vision of Bohemian life this film faintly and tragically recalls. Oh dear. How is it possible that the exhilaratingly talented star from that time has dwindled to such a dullard? |
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| Source:
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw / Posted:
Feb 14, 2008 |
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| Source:
Berlinale.de by Deborah Cole Wed Feb 13, 10:10 AM ET |
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| Filming of "Filth and Wisdom" | ||||
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| Source: AFP | ||||
| Back to February 2008 Index | ||||
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Filth
And Wisdom Great Britain, 2008 Lenght: 81 min Format: 35 mm, 1:1:85 |
Premiere
Date February 13, 2008 at 58th Berlin International Film
Festival |
Written
by Madonna and Dan Cadan Director Madonna Studio Exposure/HSI Genre: Comedy / Drama / Music Plot the story features a Russian immigrant, ballet school, lap dancing, cultural revolution, poetry, night club, punk rock band, book writer, dominatrix and gypsy. |
Starring
Stephen Graham ... Harry Beechman Richard E. Grant ... Professor Flynn Eugene Hutz ... A.K. Vicky McClure ... Juliette Ade ... DJ Olegar Fedoro ... A.K.'s Father Gogol Bordello ... Themselves (also archive footage) Elena Buda ... Ballet Student Francesca Kingdon ... Francine Clare Wilkie ... Chloe Shobu Kapoor ... Sardeep's Wife Tim Wallers ... Mr. Frisk Elliot Levey ... Benjamin Goldfarb Holly Weston ... Holly Hannah Walters ... Mrs. Goldfarb Inder Manocha ... Sardeep George Keeler ... Frail Man |
Produced
by Nicola Doring Associate Producer: Angela Becker Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones Camera operator: Peter Wignall Edited: Simon Hayes Choreographies: Stephanie Roos, Tiffany Olson Production design: Gideon Ponte Art Director: Max Bellhouse Costumes by B Make up: Sinden Dean First assistant director: Tony Fernandes Casting: Dan Hubbard Production director: Sue Hiller Unit Production manager: Gavin Milligan |
Additional
Details Runtime: UK:81 min (PAL Version) Country: UK Language: English / Russian Color: Color Filming Locations: London, England |
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