# Poison (1991)

### reviewed by
Frank Maloney

rec.arts.sf-reviews because of the three pieces making up POISON, one is fantasy and one is science fiction/horror. -Moderator]

                                        POISON
                           A film review by Frank Maloney
                            Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney

POISON is a film written and directed by Todd Haynes. The cast includes Larry Maxwell, Susan Norman, Scott Renderer, and James Lyon.

POISON is simply a brilliant film. I recommend it highly. Not only is it worth full-ticket price, it is worth a drive to another city, since it is not being distributed very widely. Even in film-loving Seattle, it was booked into one of the theaters in the University District, the most movie-intense neighborhood in Seattle, for a mere 12-day run. That run concludes today as I write and whether it will be continued at another venue is an open question.

POISON has gotten some box-office power by being the latest target of the Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association and its war on queers. And some reviewers have found it unsettling. I call it a challenging film, that has learned a new way to be a movie. Its structure, its narrative style, are challenging. The contents are fascinating, but hardly worthy of controversy.

The source for its stories and its mood of angry isolation come from the writings of Jean Genet. Genet is quoted on screen from time to time and his voice, as it were, can be heard especially in the narrative of "Homo," one of the three interlocking stories that make up POISON. Otherwise, the film presents more the spirit of Genet than it does filmed versions of his novels. Each of the three stories has a distinct look and feel to it and the film can cut from one to the next without difficulty or confusion. In the end, it doesn't matter anyway, since all three merge and conclude as a single unified piece. This is a film film-students need to study in depth.

The first story we encounter is "Hero," a mock documentary about a seven-year-old boy who, we are told in a dead pan voiceover, shot his father to death and literally flew off the bedroom balcony. The boy is reconstructed with interviews with his teacher, neighbors, school mates, and mother.

The second story is "Horror," an absolutely perfect send-up of a Roger-Corman, mad-scientist, b&w, cheapie sci-fi, Fifties film. Haynes once again has the look down perfectly. The scientist is assisted by a desperately bland Susan Norman, who ought to get some kind of award for her achievement here. "Horror" may be a parable of AIDS, or it may be something less specific. It like the others offers the pleasure of sharp style and a serious observation about human nature, about isolation and being different as a threat to the majority.

The third component is the key to the controversy "Homo," a story about a habitual criminal (like Genet himself), who is in prison and falls in love with another prisoner, a man he knew at reform school. There is some homosexual sex and male nudity in "Homo," but compared to the rape and mayhem of so-called commercial movies there ought not to be anything remarkable here for any but the most homophobic and/or hypocritical. Actually, the most shocking scene, the one that did disturb me, was a terrible ritual of humiliation inflicted on a gay boy by his straight fellow inmates in a flashback to the reformatory. The views of isolation, humiliation, love, and that prison we all live in would be devastating if the story were not told in such an impassive, detached manner.

Detachment is the major fault of POISON overall. And its saving quality. I think the movie would be too strong for me without the distance the film puts between us and the stories. The ironic use of rather campy styles in two of the stories and the cutting back and forth between the three release our tension and make POISON survivable.

         Do see if you can.  It is a remarkable film and is worthy of its
    audience.

    --
    Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
    .

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews