DEMENTIA

[3.9]

There were many moments during this hour-long movie that I doubted what I was watching.  Was this actually a dialogue-free horror film from 1955 or was this some aesthetic trick, a modern movie posing as a lost classic, ala THE ARTIST or THE LOVE WITCH? Some critics have compared DEMENTIA with THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, both in terms of it’s fever-dream logic and visuals, as well as it’s ahead-of-the-times style.  In his only film, writer/director John Parker certainly shows off his innate talent for slick camera moves, striking light design, and creative story-telling.  Whether or not it was done for budgetary reasons, the film’s lack of dialogue lends the film a strange, other-worldly tone, accentuating the minimal sound design and tense (tho often repetitive) score.  The first unusual thing I took notice of was the story’s depiction of its central figure, the rather hard-looking woman credited only as The Gamin. She reminded me of Mercedes McCambridge: not a classic Hollywood beauty, but with a strong, “real” face that contrasted with the pretty femme fatale figures of the period.  And though The Gamin is not a femme fatale, she’s no angel. We first see her in a hotel room after waking from a nightmare. She is disoriented, but she soon discovers a switchblade in her dresser drawer, and a terrifying smirk flashes across her face.  She creep out of her room, stopping out of sight of a police officer who is answering a call from a battered woman. The officer leads the abusive man away, as the battered woman locks herself back in the apartment, refusing the consolations of a female neighbor. The moment the Gamin steps foot outside, she is under constant assault by men. First a homeless wino, then a slick pick-up artist, and finally a rich, obese man in a fancy car (Bruno Ve Sota doing his best Orson Welles impression, his oily skin and voracious devouring of fried chicken really hammering home his grotesqueness). While in the car with the rich man, the Gamin flashes back to a nightmare of herself being led through a cemetery by a faceless man. Here, we see how wonderfully Parker is able to create strong visuals with simple, almost student-film techniques. The ‘faceless’ man is just a guy with black tights worn over his head, but the effect is unnerving (Parker re-uses this technique later in another dreamy sequence, of bystanders standing over the corpse of the rich man, but here the effect is even more disturbing, as he adds blonde wigs over some of the ‘faceless’ women, which is surprisingly really creepy). In the cemetery, the Gamin stands over the tombstones of her mother and father, and with some creative editing transitions, we are led to flashbacks of the Gamin’s childhood, with her home suggested by a bed, couch, and few other objects placed in the middle of the cemetery. Very theatrical.  Her father is abusive, physically and perhaps sexually. Her mother is self-obsessed, rebuffing her father, who has discovered that she is having an affair. As the mother admires herself in a mirror, the father appears and shoots her, but the Gamin suddenly appears from the shadows and stabs him. While we do see some blood, these scenes aren’t particularly violent, even for the time, but there is something particularly shocking and disturbing in the way that the violence is filmed. Maybe it’s the lingering hold on the bodies, maybe it’s the real viciousness that we see in the Gamin’s face, but it definitely leaves a stronger impression than a regular Hollywood killing.  

Similarly, Hollywood has shown us lecherous men before, but DEMENTIA gives us a subversive sleaziness that recalls pre-code films.  While in a nightclub, the Gamin watches as a man across the bar grabs and tries to force himself on a woman as she is leaving. The woman fights him off, but the Gamin takes note. Later, while watching a scantily clad dancer on stage, the camera slowly zooms into her gyrating hips, while also zooming into the rich man’s almost-drooling face. It’s a classic Hollywood technique, but used with a daring boldness that we would never see in a real Hollywood movie. Even when the Gamin throws the rich man off of a balcony, Parker utilizes a technique that recalls Hitchcock’s SABOTEUR or VERTIGO, showing an overhead of a man falling. But instead of trying to create versimilature, and holding on the very-fake-looking back-projected image, Parker takes the cheap and clever way out. We see a body falling in shadow from above, before rapidly cutting to a shot from below, with a dark dummy figure plummeting down, leaving a cloud of cash floating in the sky. The quick editing and dark imagery give us all the impression that we need, with our imaginations filling in the rest of the bloody impact. Similarly, when the Gamin goes to cut off the rich man’s hand (because his riga-mortis hand is clutching her necklace, key evidence against her), the camera pans away slightly, to rest on the man’s dead face, even as the motion off camera suggests everything we need to know. But Parker isn’t opposed to shocking us with showing us the severed hand, though it is done quickly. And this is from the early 50’s! Even at less than an hour, the film grows a bit tedious by this point, with the long sequences of the Gamin on the run from the police and hiding out in a music club being particularly weak sections. But just as the Gamin is about to be caught, she wakes up in bed. She goes to her dresser, opens it, finds the severed hand, and screams. This is a very Edgar Allen Poe ending to the story.

Besides the beautiful, nightmarish visuals, off-kilter acting, and creative editing techniques, what is perhaps most shocking and memorable about this movie is it’s focus on female abuse and revenge. Is this the precursor to the rape-revenge thriller? Parker shows us the many ways in which men take advantage of women, prey on them. But by depicting our protagonist as a cold-blooded killer, one who takes pleasure in her revenge, Parker muddles our feelings toward her. She does not kill in self defense: she kills her father to avenge her mother and she kills the rich man because… she was disgusted by him? We understand her feelings, as we see her experience a world run by abusive men, but Parker also repeatedly shows us the Gamin’s signature sick smirk. When the wino is harassing the Gamin in the alley, the police show up and start beating him. The Gamin stands back, laughing at the violence. In an even more disturbing abuse, when we flashback to her childhood, her father throws her to the ground, and we can see her also laughing. The Gamin is both victim and victimizer, reveling in the violence being done to her and seeking out the same pleasure by attacking others. DEMENTIA seamlessly moves from present to dream to flashback with the logic of nightmares, showing us a tortured soul who is more than the few simple scenes presented to us. Though it’s not a full-on masterpiece, Parker’s sole filmmaking effort is a fascinating, unique film experiment unlike any other of the time.