Singapore Sling (1990)

Singapore Sling (1990) Directed by Nikos Nikolaidis

So depraved, so arty and oh, so gorgeous. Arguably the most graceful marriage of beauty and ugliness ever filmed. The unclassifiable kinky erotica of this sinfully sensuous and lethal Greek tragedy defies expectations with its tantalizing iconoclasm and revolting immorality and defies film language by bending classical storytelling conventions from its own classical ethos, its own traditional beauty, and warping and molding it to its own pleasure to achieve an idiosyncratic, polemical portrayal of disturbing paraphilias being enacted as passionate and hysterical feats, not as debauched crimes. As controversial as this may seem, that is precisely what the sleazy art of Singapore Sling is all about. And Nikos Nikolaidis remorselessly writes and directs his most consistently sublime piece in that style that harmonizes beauty and ugliness to touch a meditative profundity that you don’t normally encounter in these sorts of twisted affairs.

Important exponents of underground filmmaking such as John Waters have successfully turned purposeful nastiness into a means to entertain, they have developed a very specific genre for a very specific audience, other committed provocateurs who lean more towards the art film spectrum such as Gaspar Noé or Abel Ferrara have used scabrous subjects as an intellectual study of the human condition. Yet most exploitation films use crude imagery and porno themes as a methodology to shock or simply provoke. Singapore Sling is one of the first films that really attempts to be beautiful through its exhibition of sleaze. And I dare say it is exceptional in doing so. Not only because its approach is more pro-artistic than pro-exploitation, but also because it unearths something very special in the portrayal of the sordid that I think few films have had the joy of discovering.

This is one of those films that contains so many surprises – both unsettling and pleasant, though more of the former – that it is best to keep its uncommon delights private. As I mentioned at the outset, Nikolaidis’ film challenges narrative cinema, making it all the more delectable to experience its peculiarities with an unfamiliar gaze. Sticking only to the basics of the plot, the film is an alluring amalgam of noir constructs, sexual role-playing, sadomasochism and trauma, dramatized as an ancient Greek tragedy but seen and filmed as a creepy Universal horror flick from the 1930s. Michele Valley and Meredyth Herold play mother and daughter, both insatiable nymphomaniacs who indulge in dangerous sadomasochistic romps. The daughter sexually abused by her father when she was 11, and now abused as an adult by her domineering mother, only knows reality through depravity. Their sexual frolics enter a new facet when detective Singapore Sling enters their lives, a guy hopelessly in love with Laura (echoing Otto Preminger’s classic film noir), whom he tenaciously tracks down. This character shatters the incestuous Sapphic monotony of the two women as now the odd male presence in the home arouses hypersexual urges and passions in the mother and daughter. Meredyth Herold playing the sexually voracious daughter is a masterstroke of dramatic commitment, delivering one of the fiercest performances I’ve ever seen. And the black-and-white monochrome in which this perverse plot is bathed is so emotionally communicative and optimal for rendering the sexual force of the performances that everything within it seems intuitive, instinctive and expressive.

Intricate and dense it may seem at first, but ultimately insightful and poignant in its portentous, cathartic denouement. Singapore Sling has a whole satisfying philosophical foundation to substantiate its brooding kaleidoscope of emetophilia, urophilia, sadism, incest and murder. Scandalous, outrageous, hilarious, sad and tragic piece of cinema that can be interpreted as a sobering deconstruction of sexual disorders or a psychoanalytic mimesis of the subsequent effects of sexual abuse on minors, in fact it can be many things. However, for me, Singapore Sling is a powerful satirical tragedy that happens to have some of the horniest characters ever, an off-kilter, hedonistic arthouse melodrama that aims to purify the passions by challenging human morality in the most objectionable manner imaginable.