Wild Side
USA 1995
Reviewed by Mark Kermode
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Los Angeles, the mid 90s. Bank officer Alex Lee, moonlighting as a high-class hooker, has paid sex with racketeer Bruno. She is then raped by his chauffeur Tony who turns out to be an undercover cop. Tony demands that Alex help him bring down Bruno, whose partner Virginia opens an account at Alex's bank. While Alex and Virginia begin an affair, Bruno enlists Alex to help him move $169 million from Virginia's account to an untraceable destination.
Alex tells Virginia of her relationship with Bruno, and pleads that they flee together. Virginia, furious, attempts suicide. Alex secretly calls both Bruno and Tony to the Midnight Hotel, where Bruno, enraged at Tony's abuse of Alex, attempts to rape Tony anally. Alex persuades Virginia to run away with her. Tony pursues Alex to her house. There, Bruno, having discovered his chauffeur is really a cop, shoots Tony and escapes in a helicopter. Alex and Virginia enter Mexico, en route to China, with money transferred from Virginia's account.
Review
If ever proof was needed that editing can make or break a film, then the two extant versions of Wild Side are enough. Originally made for production company Nu Image in 1995, Donald Cammell's final feature was taken away from the director and recut into a sleazy exploitation film, boasting a few saleable sex scenes but notable for its incoherence and general tawdry awfulness. Four years later, following Cammell's death in 1996, editor Frank Mazzola and writer China Kong set to work reconstructing Wild Side to Cammell's original specifications, reinstating the avant-garde, non-linear construction which Nu Image had fought to thwart and adding a new musical score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and others.
The result is an extraordinary piece of work, a psycho-sexual thriller every bit as deranged as its misbegotten predecessor, but distinguished by a hypnotically jazzy structural rhythm which unites - rather than isolates - the bizarre antics of its oddball cast. "It's a family problem," drools Christopher Walken's racketeer Bruno in Wild Side's most jaw-droppingly outrageous scene (in which he attempts to rape anally undercover cop Tony), and finally in this new version, we understand exactly what he's talking about. From the opening titles, with their mix of montage and jump-cuts (the preponderance of which smoothes over the few technical restoration problems), this new version of Wild Side declares itself as a film about synchronicity, in which actions and events, time and space, collide in a musical rather than logical fashion. Driven by a plot which shamelessly moves wherever it wants to go rather than where it should go, this is a work based not on intellectual but on visceral connections, a psychodrama in which a mobster can rape an undercover policeman in order to prove that he loves a hooker without the audience giving up in despair. No mean feat.
With its free-floating attitudes towards sexuality (all the characters walk both sides of the line) and the bold expressionistic colour scheme of its design and editing, Cammell's last feature bears all the stylistic hallmarks of an arthouse extravaganza. But combining this with the nuts-and-bolts ingredients of a meat-market erotic thriller creates something far more enticing than any esoteric exercise. As if transposing a chugging American V8 truck engine into a funky European run-around, editor Mazzola conjures a generic hybrid which rips along at a roaring pace; noisy, unstable and dangerous, but irresistible. Imagine Bound (which Wild Side predates) as retold in a hallucinogenic stupor and you're some way towards tasting the flavour of Cammell's swansong.
On a performance level, things veer from the sublime to the ridiculous. While Anne Heche is unsurprisingly terrific as bank officer-turned-prostitute Alex, the real eye-opener is Steven Bauer, as undercover cop Tony, whose psychotically repulsive performance seems utterly unconnected to any of his other screen roles. As for Walken, he chews up the scenery, waves his terrible hair, and rambles with a near-incoherent nasal sibilance that suggests either extreme bravery or total stupidity. It's a very thin line, and one along which Wild Side dances with pride.
Credits
- Director
- Franklin Brauner
- [i.e. Donald Cammell]
- Producers
- Elie Cohn
- John Langley
- Screenplay
- China Kong
- Donald Cammell
- Director of Photography
- Sead Mutarevic
- Editor
- Frank Mazzola
- Production Designer
- Claire Bowin
- Music
- Jon Hassell
- ©1995. Wild Side Productions Inc and Mondofin B.V.
- Production Company
- Nu Image presents
- a John Langley production
- Executive Producers
- Avi Lerner
- Danny Dimbort
- Trevor Short
- Andrew Pfeffer
- Co-producer
- Boaz Davidson
- Associate Producer
- Joan Chen
- Production Supervisor
- Barbara Freedman
- Production Co-ordinator
- Veronica Alweiss
- Location Manager
- Andre Gaudry
- Location Consultant
- Robert Dohan
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Steven Kevin Ogden
- Audio Supervisor:
- Jo Dee Housholder
- Assistant Directors
- Paul N. Martin
- Philip J. Gallegos
- Script Supervisor
- Ronit Ravich Boss
- Casting
- Pamela Rack
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Eric Rylander
- Set Decorator
- Shana Sigmond
- Scenic Artists
- Catherine Burns
- Patricia Riske
- Rebeka L. Roberts
- Costume Designer
- Alison Hirsch
- Costume Supervisor
- Beverly Klein
- Make-up Artist
- Ashley Scott
- Hair
- Scott Williams
- Titles/Opticals
- CFI: The Imaging Group
- Additional Music
- Lee Curreri
- Jamie Muhoberac
- Music Supervisor
- Diane DeLouise Wessel
- Soundtrack
- "Sweet and Sexy" - Nat Turner; "Oye morena" - M.C. Boulevard; "Alvarado Street" - Cat Daddy; "Serene" - Nobukazu Takemura; "Pa-nang Tofu" - Lee Curreri; Mozart's "Deh vieni non tarder" - Norddeutsche Philharmonic, soprano: Louise LeBrun; "Enamorado" - House of Light; "Mariachi and Soda" - Don Peake
- Sound Mixer
- Benjamin A. Patrick
- Re-recording Mixers
- Paul Schremp
- Darren Barnett
- Dialogue Supervisor
- Harry Harris
- Sound Effects Editors
- Mark Korba
- Pattie Lorusso
- ADR
- Mixers:
- Darren Barnett
- David Rodriguez
- Editorial:
- Mikael Sandgren
- Foley
- Mixers:
- Darren Barnett
- David Rodriguez
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Spike Silver
- Teddy's
- Helicopter Pilot
- Peter McKernan
- Donald Cammell's Wild Side/Wild Side - The Director's Cut credits
- Director
- Donald Cammell
- Producers
- Hamish McAlpine
- Nick Jones
- Frank Mazzola
- Editor
- Frank Mazzola
- Music Composer/
Performer/Producer - Ryuichi Sakamoto
- ©2000. Tartan Films
- Co-producers
- China Kong
- Roger Trilling
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Frank Mazzola
- Co-ordinator:
- Catherine Hader Mazzola
- Dialogue Director
- China Kong
- Avid Editor
- John Ganem
- Associate Editor
- Catherine Hader Mazzola
- Opticals/Titles
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Additional Music
- Jarvis Cocker
- Steve Mackey
- Mark Webber
- Music Supervisors
- Roger Trilling
- Music Recordist/Mixer Ryuichi Sakamoto
- MIDI System Technicians
- Yasushi Mouri
- Office Intenzio
- Sound Design
- Peggy McAffee
- Re-recording Mixers
- Robert J. Litt
- Wayne Heitman
- Neil Brody
- Effects Editors
- Peggy McAffee
- Additional:
- Tom Smyth
- Foley
- Artist:
- Michael Salvetta
- Mixer:
- Debra Ruby
- Recordists
- Marsha Sorce
- Rudy Lara
- Dialogue Editors
- Chris Reeves
- Gabrielle Reeves
- Cast
- Christopher Walken
- Bruno Buckingham
- Joan Chen
- Virginia Chow
- Steven Bauer
- Tony
- Anne Heche
- Alex Lee
- Allen Garfield
- Dan Rackman
- Adam Novack
- Lyle Litvak
- Zion
- Hiro Sakamoto
- Richard Palmer
- cop driver
- Randy Crowder
- federal agent
- Marcus Aurelius
- James Reed
- Michael Rose
- Agent Morse Jaeger
- Lewis Arquette
- the chief
- Rolando de la Maza
- steward
- Candace Camille Bender
- Lotus Ita
- Ian Johnson
- Philip Hamlyn
- Gena Kim
- massage girl
- Robert Mazzola
- Gilberto
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Metro Tartan Distributors
- 10,376 feet
- 115 minutes 18 seconds
- Dolby
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Original US theatrical title
- Wild Side