Sublime, rhapsodic, and jaw-droppingly gorgeous

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 1998)

One of the most visually exciting films I've seen in many months. Literally breath-taking in the splendor with which Todd Haynes has recreated so many "glamorous" tableaux from a vanished era I personally was barely aware of even when it was going on. The film is set in an alternate-universe version of planet Earth that's part fantasy, part nightmare. Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, Jack Smith's aleatory essays on Maria Montez, epigrams by Oscar Wilde incorporated repeatedly into the script, and a surprisingly thoughtful rumination upon fannish appreciation for mass culture and the stance of the fan, all add up to elements that make this movie a lot bigger than the sum of its parts. But what I took away from it was the dream-like clarity of Haynes' magical vistas, and the exquisite beauty with which his camera endows the principal players: Ewan MacGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Toni Collette (resembling Sandy Dennis risen from the grave in her Eighties sequences), and the enigmatic Jack Faery (who played him, anyway?). Those looking for a film-a-clef about Bowie and Iggy should look elsewhere. This movie packs a huge wallop, and I'm still reeling from the vision it offers of a glam past I never thought I'd be here to claim.