MOUTH TO MOUTH
UK/Germany, 2004, 104 minutes, Colour.
Eric Thal, Ellen Page, Natasha Wightman, August Diehl, Maxwell McCabe? -Lokos, Beatrice Brown.
Directed by Alison Murray.
Mouth to Mouth is a small-budget film. It is autobiographical, the experience of the writer-director, Alison Murray, in moving into a commune of rebels. The rebels have a social agenda, protest, live in common. However, it soon appears that leadership in such groups is in danger of becoming leadership of a sect imposing personal rules and whims.
Eric Thal is the charismatic leader of the group who moves into a dictatorship. Ellen Page is the young girl who represents the writer-director. August Diehl is a German member of the group.
The film has European settings as the group moves around France, into Paris, into Portugal.
The film shows the brutality of life in such a group when the leadership goes authoritarian. It also shows the power of brainwashing. The various sequences, including dances, represent the attitudes of the different characters.
Ellen Page was to move to a higher profile with an Oscar nomination for Juno (which meant that this film received distribution after her success). August Diehl also moved into some significant German films including The Ninth Day and The Counterfeiters.
1.The director’s experience? Autobiographical? The assessment and reassessment of her life?
2.The small budget, rough and ready visual style, hand-held camera, natural light, performances, improvisation, members of the public performing?
3.A reflection of the times, rebellion, protest, opting out, communes, the sect?
4.The title and its way of life?
5.The cast, strengths, later careers?
6.The portrait of Sherry, her age, family, a rebel, the clashes with her mother, middle-class, wanting more? SPARKS (Street People Armed with Knowledge)? Searching for them, finding them, her being welcomed? Harry and his personality, influence? The other members of the group, Nancy, Mad Axe, Tiger? Harry and his leadership? The lifestyle, the need for money, begging in the Paris streets? The rules, chastity? The festival and the dance manifestations? Rose arriving and clashing with her daughter? Persuading her to come home, falling out again? Sherry leaving? Travelling through Europe, finding the group in Portugal? Finding that her mother had changed, was part of the commune? Harry and his behaviour, his punishing people who disobeyed the rules, Nancy wanting to escape, her confession, Sherry and her substituting herself for Mad Axe, going into the pit, Nancy’s asthmatic death, her escape with Mad Axe?
7.Sherry’s point of view, the audience sharing it, the attraction of the group, the repelling aspects? Ideology? Reality?
8.Harry in himself, as leader, his relationship with Sherry, with the others, becoming harsher, the issue of sex, punishing Sherry and accusing her of seduction? His putting people in the pit? His dominance over Rose?
9.Nancy, her motivation, wanting freedom, Mad Axe?
10.Tiger, more sinister, menacing Sherry?
11.Rose, her arrival, middle-class background, changing, shaving her head, spying and reporting to Harry?
12.The festival, the dance and the manifestation of character – choreographed psychodrama?
13.The film touching the nerve of alienated youth and offering alternates? A critique of the alternates?
