Phantom Love 2 stars
Marina Shoif, Juliette Marquis, Yelena Apartseva
Directed by Nina Menkes
Shows again June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Films like Phantom Love aren’t for everyone. They defy convention with non-narrative structures, a blend of surreal images and sometimes an excruciatingly slow pace. They often require a great deal of interpretation, but if you’re up for that, they can be extremely rewarding, emotional experiences. I went into Phantom Love with an open mind, and in the beginning, I was fascinated and drawn into explicating it, until it wore out its welcome.
The first act contains almost no dialogue. Instead it combines images of mechanical, emotionless sex, octopus tentacles, mundane work, a snake in a hallway and overzealous nail-filing. Initially, it’s simply bizarre, but after a while, the pairing of certain scenes (octopus and sex, for instance) starts to evoke emotions that make sense. When the sex scene focuses more on the sound of traffic outside than what’s going on in the bed, we can actually feel the woman’s lack of interest.
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Then it gets too repetitive. We get sex, sex, nail-filing, work, octopus, sex, work, snake, work, octopus, sex, and by the time the meat of the story arrives—a woman struggling to deal with her family and relationships—we’ve gotten too bored to bother with further analysis.