Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Exotica

 
Movies:

Exotica

Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Movies
Exotica
Buy Now

  • Director: Atom Egoyan
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstar
  • Genre: Drama
  • Movie Type: Psychological Drama, Ensemble Film
  • Themes: Haunted By the Past, Voyeurs, Redemption
  • Main Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Don McKellar, Arsinée Khanjian, Elias Koteas, Sarah Polley, Victor Garber
  • Release Year: 1994
  • Country: US/CA
  • Run Time: 104 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: R

Plot

The action in Canadian provocateur Atom Egoyan's cryptic Exotica revolves largely around the strip club, which lends the film its name, a faux-tropical hothouse where young female dancers cater to their customers' sexual and psychological needs. Among the regulars is Francis (Bruce Greenwood), a troubled taxman haunted by Christina, a young stripper played by Mia Kirshner. As the film hypnotically unfolds, their relationship is slowly explored, the narrative dovetailing with the stories of a gay pet shop owner (Don McKellar), the Exotica's pregnant owner (Arsinee Khanjian), and its embittered DJ (Elias Koteas). Like all of Egoyan's films, Exotica is a riddle, its answers only fostering more questions. The director's recurring themes of family breakdowns, voyeurism and obsession are all in the mix here as well, but essayed with a new clarity of vision and intensity. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Review

A creative coup for the endlessly challenging writer/director Atom Egoyan, Exotica is a haunting, beautifully rendered tale of obsession and sexual frustration, following six disparate characters whose lives entwine in the most bizarre of ways. Employing overlapping and reverse chronology (a staple of Egoyan's storytelling), the picture builds slowly until its revelations become apparent, and the end result is a hypnotic and moving chronicle of broken lives and loss. The performances are all affecting and first-rate, and despite its key setting (a strip joint), the film is never obscene or concerned with rubbing the viewer's face in excess. Egoyan's tale has more on its mind, and its uncanny ability to get inside the heads of its initially opaque characters is enough to leave one shaken. A breakthrough effort for Egoyan, Exotica was his first art-house success in the U.S. after several previous releases. Exotica also won a Genie Award for Best Film from the director's native Canada during the year of its release.

~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide

Cast

Calvin Green - Customs Officer; Jack Blum - Scalper; David Hemblen - Inspector; Damon D'Oliveira - Man at Opera; Peter Krantz - Man in Taxi; Ken McDougall - Doorman

Credit

David J.Webb - Associate Producer, Linda Muir - Costume Designer, David J.Webb - First Assistant Director, Atom Egoyan - Director, Susan Shipton - Editor, Mychael Danna - Composer (Music Score), Ross Redfern - Musical Direction/Supervision, Nicole Demers - Makeup, Linda Del Rosario - Production Designer, Richard Paris - Production Designer, Paul Sarossy - Cinematographer, Atom Egoyan - Producer, Camelia Frieberg - Producer, Ross Redfern - Sound/Sound Designer, Daniel Pellerin - Sound/Sound Designer, Keith Elliott - Sound/Sound Designer, Peter Winniger - Sound/Sound Designer, Peter Kelly - Sound/Sound Designer, Steve Munro - Sound Editor, Andy Malcolm - Sound Editor, Sue Conley - Sound Editor, Paul Shikata - Sound Editor, Atom Egoyan - Screenwriter

Similar Movies

The Adjuster; All the Vermeers in New York; Chain of Desire; Rendez-Vous; Eclipse; Crash; Love and Human Remains; The Sweet Hereafter; Urbania; Memento; Mulholland Dr.; Lantana; Hotel; Mr. Smith Gets a Hustler; 21 Grams; Twentynine Palms; Crash; Babel; The Air I Breathe; The Life Before Her Eyes
Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Wikipedia: Exotica (film)
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Exotica

Exotica film poster
Directed by Atom Egoyan
Produced by Atom Egoyan
Written by Atom Egoyan
Starring Mia Kirshner,
Elias Koteas,
Sarah Polley,
Victor Garber,
Bruce Greenwood
Distributed by Miramax Films
Running time 103 minutes
Country Canada
Language English
Budget CAD 2 million

Exotica is a 1994 Canadian film set primarily in and around the Exotica strip club in Toronto, Canada. It was written and directed by Atom Egoyan.

Contents

Synopsis

Note: The story of Exotica is not told in chronological order and important information is often revealed only late in the film. The following synopsis does not reflect the viewer's actual experience of the events as they unfold.

Exotica presents a disparate group of characters whose lives are interconnected through the Exotica nightclub. Christina (Mia Kirshner) is an exotic dancer at Exotica, owned by Zoe (Arsinée Khanjian). Eric (Elias Koteas) is the club's DJ, and Christina's former boyfriend. Francis (Bruce Greenwood) is a customer who comes in nightly and always has Christina - dressed in a schoolgirl uniform - give him a private dance, which seems to inspire Eric's jealousy.

In his professional life, Francis is a tax auditor for Revenue Canada, and Thomas (Don McKellar) is a latent-gay pet store owner whose books of account Francis is auditing pursuant to a suspicion of Thomas running an illegal import business with revenues of $200,000 per year.

Francis is eventually banned from the club when Eric manipulates him into touching Christina during one of her dances (which is against the rules of the club). Around the same time, Francis discovers illegal activities in Thomas' financial records, and forces Thomas to get involved in his conflict with Eric - and we eventually learn that Francis' obsession with Christina has much more complex roots than it first appears. The film's final scene, set many years before the others, also drastically reconfigures the viewer's understanding of the characters, especially Christina.

Cast

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Exotica". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2964/year/1994.html. Retrieved 2009-08-26. 

Notes

  • Egoyan, Atom, "Dr. Gonad", Granta #86 (Summer 2004) touches upon Egoyan's unlikely Adult Video award.

External links

v • d • e
Films directed by Atom Egoyan
Feature Films
Next of Kin (1984) · Family Viewing (1987) · Speaking Parts (1989) · The Adjuster (1991) · Calendar (1993) · Exotica (1994) · The Sweet Hereafter (1997) · Felicia's Journey (1999) · Ararat (2002) · Where the Truth Lies (2005) · Adoration (2008)
TV Films
In This Corner (1985) · Gross Misconduct (1993) · Sarabande (1997) · Krapp's Last Tape (2000) ·
Short Films
Howard in Particular (1979) · After Grad with Dad (1980) · Peep Show (1981) · Open House (1982) · Men: A Passion Playground (1985) · Looking for Nothing (1988) · Montréal vu par... / Montreal Sextet segment: En passant (In Passing) (1991) · A Portrait of Arshile (1995) · The Line (2000) · Diaspora (2001) · Chacun son cinéma / To Each His Cinema segment: Artaud Double Bill (2007) ·
v • d • e
Genie Award Winners for Best Motion Picture

The Changeling (1980) • Les Bons débarras (1981) • Ticket to Heaven (1982) • The Grey Fox (1983) • The Terry Fox Story (1984) • The Bay Boy (1985) • My American Cousin (1986) • Le Déclin de l'empire américain (1987) • Un Zoo la nuit (1988) • Dead Ringers (1989) • Jésus de Montréal (1990) • Black Robe (1991) • Naked Lunch (1992) • Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) • Exotica (1994) • The Confessional (1995) • Lilies (1996) • The Sweet Hereafter (1997) • The Red Violin (1998) • Sunshine (1999) • Maelström (2000) • Atanarjuat (2001) • Ararat (2002) • Les Invasions barbares (2003) • Les Triplettes de Belleville (2004) • C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) • Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006) • Away from Her (2007) • Passchendaele (2008)

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Shopping: Exotica
Top
cuban exotica
 
 

 

Copyrights:

Movies. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Movie Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Exotica (film)".  Read more

Related answers
» More
 
Answer these
» More

Mentioned in

» More» More