Review of sex, lies, and videotape (1989) by Veronique K — 27 Mar 2011

I used not to understand "sex, lies and videotape" and dismiss it as a humdrum pretense of intellectual smugness and I asked myself then "where was that provocatively sexual stuff the advertisement says?" when I was 16 and watched it during my high-school days..(at the time when videotape was about to be eliminated and replaced by dvds)...and I just re-watched it weeks ago and found myself deeply amused by its witty dialogues, so different from what I felt 10 years ago. age does mellow a person beyond one's own expectation.

It's about a loner who claims himself impotent and gets his thrill of life by videotaping women talking about sex, a housewife who's frigid about sex, who also has a lying lawyer husband who cheats on her with her free-spirited but somehow crass sister who holds a smoldering grudge against the goody goody housewife, a story settled in some cozy town of inland america. anyway, the lives of these people are altered all at a sudden when the loner steps into the picture with his voyeuristic videotape-fetish. does that sound a bit like hitchcock's rear window with a naughty twist to you? huh?

What interests me is, of course, its sex (who isn't interested in sex? let's be frank), the mentality of sex. if cinema is a form of collective voyeurism, wouldn't it be an ironic self-reflection to witness a voyeurist who carries the same knack as you do in front of the screen? to voyeur or to gaze is a very sexually charged act and even more intense than the real sex because it's so full of unfulfilled wishes for transgressions. if voyeurism is a substituted form of sex, and to give others consent to videotape you is like saying yes to a proposition of sex. the gazer appears like an intrusive trespasser (of their minds) but by actuality he turns to be the helplessly fixated prey of those women who accept such intimate camera-exposure.

The lawyer character who has got most laids in the movie is actually the least sexual one because the sexes are de-subliminated by immediate gratifications while those women around him are aroused by the voyeuristic loner who ravishes their minds on the side of camera. (said in a crude way, it would be "he fucks their brains out with his inquistive lens") the notion is that when one's in the process of copulation, he/she is actually making love to an idealized beautification of an image projected into his/her mind, in other words, she/he is fornicating with an illusion. just like real life, some couples, who fail to entince the sexual spunk from each other, would watch some porno tapes to help themselves to get into the mood for sex, and it's probably more like consensual cheatings (with the porno actors) rather than mutual masturbations.

The ending is the loner smashes all his videotapes once his protected universe of reclusion is shatttered into pieces when the dejected housewife reverses the camera back on him and his fetishized, idolized object of desire is blemished, i.e., the sacred memories of his very one passionate love are violated by betrayal. (his college girlfriend, who he has carried the torch for all these years, turns out to be liar as his lawyer friend confides him about her infidelity "she's no saint; she's just good in bed")..as he finds the void within his idealized illusion, he abandons this peculiarly subliminated form of sex to get involved into a real relationship. doesn't that sound interesting? even it has no dynamic sex scenes, no actual nudity shown, and it's just a bunch of jaded people talking about sex, but the motives behind these acts are surely engrossing.

(ps) in a brief, suppressed people are much more sexually charged, so they watch lots of interesting movies as substitutes like we flixsters(cinephile=implicit voyeurs?)...huh? of course, I kid. you'll be the judge of that.