Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye
a film by Andrew Repasky McElhinney

A number of critics have reviewed Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye within its literary context and with a subtlety that respects its artistic intentions. But this is UnitShifter, so if you want that shit then click on over to this artofago review.

Okay, this movie is completely fucking over the top. In fact, it's kind of amazing. It's an art film with a fondness for behind-the-balls shots. Yes, you read that correctly. In fact, you don't know the half of it.

Now, like most adolescent guys with a penchant for girls in black makeup, I went through a semi-goth phase growing up. I didn't wear fishnets on my arms, but I did listen to Coil and hang out in smoky S&M-themed clubs. Part of that experience involves reading a bit of the old Georges Bataille. Personally, I always preferred The Impossible, but Story of the Eye was more than disturbing enough to get a goth slut wet in a pinch. It's also the Bataille's most infamous, even being touted as a must-read by none other than alt-popper Bjerk.

The independent film Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye is not so much a filmed adaptation as it is a "film inspired by." Bataille's been called a "metaphysician of evil" who uses porn as art, and it is there that filmmaker Andrew Repasky McElhinney finds his most cogent inspiration.

Casting his film with burlesque dancers, porn stars, DJs, and tattoo artists, McElhinney has pulled together a fearless troupe of outlaws and art school hotties to join him in pursuit of art as porn… or porn as art?

Porn As Art might be closer to the truth.

Things start off slow enough with 50s-era medical stock footage of a particularly distressing breach birth (complete with blood streaming from the freshly cut vagina). Yes, that's the opening.

From there, McElhinney brings us to a disturbing burlesque show wherein two performers (real-life burlesquers Melissa Elizabeth Forgione and Courtney Shea) dance in unsettling reverse-decapitation costumes kind of like nude Mr. Planter's Peanuts guys (you had to be there). As if this isn't off-putting enough, the burlesque show cuts back and forth to the sole audience-member, a Robert Smith-alike in a suit with tattooed knuckles and a cock in his hand. It's his cock, but that doesn't really make it okay. Cutting back and forth from disembodied nudies to super-close-up sausage slapping, McElhinney's Act 1 is quick to introduce us to his unique brand of uneasy erotica. Personally, I can only thank him for sparing us a goopy Act 1 Climax.

Act 2 involves a skinny blonde boyish guy and a big black dominant man. It seems like we're about to see some weird homo-erotic soft core BDSM, but suddenly a big black cock is being roughly shined by a little white mouth. Yes, we are treated to a very tight close-up on a serious little-man-on-big-man cocksucking session. Speaking of tight close-ups, what would ordinarily be crossing the line in even the most outlaw of art films is really just the preamble. Soon enough, the saliva on that cock becomes lube and the movie's Act 2 rolls right on into finely photographed anal sex. And don't be mistaken into thinking this is an MTV-style fast cut ass-fucking. Oh no, this is edited with the pacing of a snuff film.

Long after you'll have questioned your own feelings on a good old fashioned ass-banging, McElhinney returns to the hottie-for-heteros (hetero dudes, anyway) Melissa Elizabeth Forgione. In one of the most aesthetically interesting moments, Melissa awakens in a bathroom with her eyes wrapped in bloody gauze. She stumbles over to a dog cage and releases crusty goth hottie Courtney Shea. The two quickly engage in some Suicide Girls-esque escapades of touching and kissing and general dyking out. Lest we forget where McElhinney draws the line, soft core turns hardcore soon enough. Although the Doom Generation style lighting might momentarily trick you into expecting a cock/clit-tease of an indie erotica scene, nuh uh. Kissing and touching turns to straight-up muff chomping and then… yeahp, the double sided dildo appears. This is definitely post-Suicide Girls indie filmmaking at its finest.

The rest of the movie is so far from linear that it would be difficult to describe… I'm not trying to give a scene by scene breakdown anyway, but sometimes you just really have to give a detailed description of such a richly rendered train wreck. A sequence of Courtney Shea stumbling around her squat is photographed like the stream-of-consciousness of a retarded ostrich… it's non-linear but slow and it accidentally shoved its head up its own ass. But worry not, because it is directly following this scene that Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye reaches its apex of line-crossing and becomes one of the most satisfying contributions to Transgression Cinema in recent memory.

Not since Lydia Lunch screamed "Fuck my ass, you filthy pig!" has an outlaw indie movie struck me as so riveting, unsettling, disengaging, and appalling all at the same time. McElhinney gives us art that is arousing while giving us porn that is nauseating… and in the process he blackens our souls just a little bit more.

Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye Official Website

Also by Andrew Repasky McElhinney:

A Chronicle of Corpses	Magdalen
Both on sale now for just $5.93 each!