Irresistible Trash

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2012)

I saw this movie as a child and knew it was terrible then, yet I couldn't take my eyes off it for a second. This is the rare movie that is so bad it is unforgettable; elements from it instantly entered the pop mythology of the 1980s. An entire generation (whether they saw the movie or not) became familiar with the welder-by-day/dancer-by-night conceit, the creative-bra-removal scene, the "Maniac" running-in-place dance workout, and (of course) the interpretive dance involving gallons of water. Film critics may not have been enchanted, but you don't get such scenes in every movie.
Every so often, a low-budget "sleeper" movie comes out and becomes a runaway hit; generally, such movies are blue-collar musicals. They are about the ways in which struggling lower-class people use song and dance to break away from their squalid lives. (Examples--"Saturday Night Fever", "Grease", "Dirty Dancing", "Full Monty", "Billy Elliot"). This movie could be a parody of that genre, but it is played (and was taken) straight. A dewy-eyed female welder, Alex (whose hair, makeup, and wardrobe are always impeccable) finds artistic release at night through her performances in the oddest nightclub in movie history; the dancers thrash around and gyrate under strobe lights while never removing so much as a sock--yet the place stays in business despite competition from a "real" strip club up the street (whose sleazy promoter keeps trying to poach away Alex and her friends). Yet Alex isn't fulfilled by this--she longs to study classical ballet and be taken "seriously". To that end, she keeps almost-applying to a local dance academy, urged on by an elderly former ballerina (Lilia Skala)--this unlikely friendship is actually one of the most likable and believable elements in the movie. It's less a movie than an extended rock video--everything is soaked in 1980s "atmosphere" and scored to Giorgio Moroder hits. Strange, I know, but not all movie love is explicable.