Product: Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
Rating: 5.0
Emphasis On "Imaginary"
"Fur" is an exceptional film, yet not everyone will get it. It is not what you might call a "mainstream" film; however, the combination of fantasy, tragedy, and romance is potent enough to make for a particularly exotic viewing experience. The film was not intended to be a straightforward biopic of Diane Arbus. It was intended to answer the question of what pushed Arbus (Nicole Kidman) to break from her traditional role of wife, mother, and photographer's assistant and commence taking photographs of freaks, midgets, giants, albinos, twins, sex workers, corpses, the mentally challenged, etc, etc. The character of Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey Jr.) serves to give Arbus that push by leading her into his dream-like world of circus performers and human oddities, forming an intensely erotic bond with her that awakens the artist within and allows her to become the photographer that she eventually became. The film has been criticized for delving too far into the tragic and the romantic and for not staying true to the biographical story of Arbus's life, but at the end of the day, who cares? I loved it. I was able to easily see what the filmmakers were trying to do and it made sense to me. I loved the fact that the film took Arbus's story in a completely different direction by attempting to answer the unanswerable, and very creatively at that. I would say that it helps to know something about Diane Arbus and her life prior to viewing the film (I own two or three books of Arbus's photography and I have read the Patricia Bosworth biography, and both greatly contributed to my understanding of the film). "Fur" should appeal to viewers who like fantasy-themed films and who do not mind certain liberties being taken with factual information.